


Wings of the Night

by Fanofeverything101



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Court of Owls, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Post Season 2, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 58,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24171823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanofeverything101/pseuds/Fanofeverything101
Summary: Seven months after the invasion, the Team is together under Kaldur's leadership and doing great, except that Nightwing has left and no one has been in contact with him. When Deathstroke reappears, they are forced to find the former leader to get his help only to soon learn that there is a much more dangerous enemy out there who is hunting Nightwing. *Set after season 2, not following season 3. And Wally's alive!*
Comments: 9
Kudos: 194





	1. War of Change

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this story idea stuck in my head and really wanted to write it. It’s an AU of what happens after the ending of season 2, except Wally lives. I know it’s been done before, several times, but I just couldn’t help myself. Chapter title is taken from the song War of Change by Thousand Foot Crutch.

_“The damage to the city of San Francisco due to the massive earthquake that struck only an hour earlier can only be described as devasting. Over half of the city has completely collapsed into nothing but rubble leaving thousands trapped and injured. Already the hospitals are filled with people coming for medical treatment and we have confirmation that there have been 12 fatalities._

_Luckily, several members of the Justice League and their sidekicks are on the scene and helping the police and firefighters clear out the debris and rescue those still trapped.”_

Wally turned his attention away from the female reporter that was standing in front of a camera crew several feet away from him. He had been running through the city block by block, looking for anyone who needed help, stopping whenever he heard voices. That was the only reason he had stopped now, but seeing that it was just a reporter giving an update to the entire country, he ignored it. Five years ago, he probably would’ve run past them, right in line of the cameras so everyone could see him, but he wasn’t a kid anymore. He was an adult now and had a job to do.

It had been seven months since the Reach invasion and they saved the world. Seven months since he had almost died. Six months since he and Artemis officially rejoined the Team with Roy. Despite being off the Team for a couple of years, when they came back, it was like no time had passed at all. They all fought together and clicked just like they did before. The only thing that was different, besides all of the new members, was the Nightwing was gone. He had left the Team one week after the invasion.

The speedster wasn’t exactly sure what had all happened that made Dick leave, as he was still in the infirmary and no one seemed to want to talk about it. Not that he ever brought it up after he learned that his best friend left. Dick had only visited him once in the hospital, where he apologized for how he handled things and Wally told him he needed some time and space to process everything. That was the last time he saw the former Robin. He didn’t even come and tell him himself that he was leaving the Team. He had to find out from Kaldur. That was also the last time they really talked about Nightwing. Even when he got texts from him, Artemis would give him a look of disapproval as Wally ignored them but she never said anything. He wondered though how long that would last. But for now, he pushed it all to the back of his mind like he always did and got back to work.

On the other end of the city, Jaime and Bart worked together to clear a destroyed building’s pile of rubble that was keeping several people trapped. The two teenagers had become fast friends in the last several months, not that that was much of a surprise to anyone. Jaime had been a little upset that the main reason Bart had tried so hard to befriend him when he first arrived was because he was trying to keep the scarab attached to his spine from controlling him, but he was quick to forgive him. After all, he didn’t want to be controlled and forced to be an evil monster, and he and Bart got along rather well. When he could understand the speedster from the future that is. There was some phrases Bart said that he still didn’t get.

“How long do you think this is going to take? I wanna do something fun.” Bart complained as he moved a small section of what appeared to have been part of a wall at some point away from the pile.

“We’ve only been at this for half an hour.” Jaime pointed out, though he wasn’t surprised Bart was already bored. He had never spent much time around speedster before Bart arrived. The Flash never really spent time with the Team and Wally had gone into retirement with Artemis not long after he joined. One of the things he did hear about them though was that, along with a low level of patience, they tended to get bored rather quickly. The grandson of the Flash had proved both to be true on several occasions.

“I just wish this could go faster. I mean, I have superspeed right? But not superstrength, and that slows me down. Can you imagine if I had both? I’d be unstoppable.” Bart replied, getting a faraway look in his eyes that told Jaime he was thinking of it right now.

“You know, I’m actually glad you don’t. I have a feeling you’d do something stupid with it.” Jaime told him with a teasing voice.

“Whatever I’d do with it wouldn’t be stupid. It would be awesome! It would be totally crash!” Bart objected, seeming to get more and more excited about it. Jaime normally wouldn’t mind, except that now Bart was so distracted about what he would do with powers he didn’t have that he had completely stopped digging and clearing the rubble away.

“It’d probably involve some kind of crash alright.” The Blue Beetle mumbled. For the expression on Impulse’s face though, it was clear that he had heard him.

“Look, let’s just back to work. Standing around talking is only going to slow everything down.” Jaime pointed out before turning back to the debris, the scarab on his back reminding him of the people they were trying to free. With a nod of agreement, Bart also got back to work.

The speedster did have a point though. All of this could be done a lot faster if they all had superspeed and strength. While the beetle did make him stronger, he wasn’t as strong as Superman and he certainly wasn’t as fast as a speedster. He couldn’t really use his weapons to help dig through all the damage out of fear that he would hit the wrong piece of rubble and make the place collapse even more and possibly kill the people that they were trying to save. That was also why Bart didn’t try to use his speed to carve a path down to the trapped people. All of the buildings, especially the collapsed ones, were far too unstable. So was the ground below them with the threat of aftershocks being fairly high after an earthquake of this size.

The two heroes worked together in silence, focusing all of their attention on the matter at hand. Soon, though not soon enough for Bart, they moved enough debris to create a large hole in the pile that led to a makeshift cave that several people were trapped in.

“Is anyone hurt?” Jaime asked as he helped them out.

“No, no I don’t think so.” One of the ladies they freed answered with a shaky voice.

“Is anyone else still down there?” Bart then wondered. The man he was helping quietly said, “I don’t know.”

“I’ll check. You get these people to safety.” Jaime somewhat ordered Bart. The young teenager didn’t seem to mind that though, understanding that the Blue Beetle could sense if there was anyone still trapped. It made sense that he should be the one staying behind.

“Okay, you guys follow me.” Bart told the small group before he started leading them towards the street that led to the nearest, working, medical center.

As soon as they were safely away, Jaime lowered himself into the hold that had just been opened up. He looked around for any sign of any other people that could be trapped but found none.

_I am not picking up any life signatures,_ the scarab told him.

“Is it possible that there could be more people buried deeper that you can’t sense.” Jamie asked quietly.

_It is possible, but if there are, they’d likely be dead,_ the scarab replied.

“Aren’t you a cheery bug.” Jaime remarked under his breath.

_In situations such as this, it is best to remain realistic. Besides, being cheery is a waste of time,_ the monotone voice responded. Knowing that no matter what he said, the scarab wouldn’t change his opinion, he dropped the discussion and made his way out of the hole.

_What are you doing_ , the scarab asked as Jaime circled the rubble.

“Just wanting to double check. I don’t want to leave if there’s still people still stuck under there.” Jaime answered.

_That would also be a waste of time._

“You’re that good at detecting people through rubble?” Jaime wondered with a sarcastic tone.

_Yes I, MOVE!_ The scarab suddenly yelled. He did, more out of shock to the bug’s loudness than the order. He was glad he did though when he saw something fly straight at the spot he had been standing seconds earlier. And when it hit one of the bricks, it caused a mini explosion.

“What the heck?” Jaime said in shock as he stared at where the explosion had been, then looked in the direction it came from.

If he wasn’t in his suit, there would’ve been no way he would’ve seen anything. But even though he was in the suit, he barely saw anything because the person who had fired the shot that caused the mini explosion was so far away. All he could see was a dark figure hidden in the shadows and that was it, until he saw a flash of some kind, immediately followed by the scarab shouting at him to move again.

The Blue Beetle jumped to the side, expecting another mini explosion, but that didn’t happen. What did happen though, was a bullet hole suddenly appearing in an old beam. A person was shooting at him. He was being shot at. Someone was trying to kill him.

_I’M BEING SHOT AT!_ Jaime screamed into the mind-link M’gann had set up when they first arrived in the wrecked city.

_Where are you?_ M’gann immediately asked as Jaime ducked for cover. Whoever had shot at him was still firing and he was not in the mood to get hit.

_I don’t know, I can’t see the street sign from here,_ Jaime told her.

_You’re on the corner of 8 th and 45th,_ Bart told them before he added, _I’m on my way._

_Hurry,_ Jaime pleaded, peeking out of his hiding spot, only to pull back again when another bullet landed near his head.

_Your armour is strong enough to withstand bullets, there is no need to hide,_ the scarab reminded him, sounding a little disgusted that he was hiding instead of fighting.

“You get shot at, you run for cover. It’s instinct.” Jaime defended his decision even though he was starting to feel a tad embarrassed, having forgotten how strong his suit was.

A rush of wind came from behind him before Bart suddenly appeared, crouched down in front of him. Jaime opened his mouth to say something but Bart beat him to it.

“You okay Beetle?”

“Yeah, I think so. Would like to know who’s trying to kill me though.” Jaime answered.

“Don’t worry. Miss Martian and Kid Flash are on it. Let’s just get you out of here.” Bart told him. Without giving Jaime a chance to respond, he grabbed the older teen’s arm, wrapped an arm around his waist and took off running, the Blue Beetle in tow.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

By the time M’gann got to the roof of the building where Bart said the shooter was, Wally was already there. And is seemed that he was completely gone.

“Did you find the shooter?” The alien asked as she floated down towards him, landing only about three feet away from him.

“No. Whoever he was, he’s long gone.” Wally answered, sounding upset and worried.

“But how?” M’gann then questioned. “The last bullet he fired was only about two minutes ago and you got here in less than that.”

“I know, but I can’t find him. He must have had another way out.” Wally told her, trying to remain calm which was a more difficult than usual. Not only was he angry that someone had decided to try and kill a member of their team and was apparently smart enough to have an exit strategy, but he also missed lunch. He never had the best self control when he was hungry.

“This couldn’t have been a random attack then, or even someone who was just taking advantage of the situation. The shooter had to have planned this.” M’gann surmised, looking around the roof.

“But there’s no way he could’ve planned something like this. He would’ve had to take the earthquake into account and you can’t plan an earthquake.” Wally objected, then suddenly froze. His face turning from one of confusion and frustration to one of fear and seriousness, he locked eyes with M’gann and asked, “Or can you?”

“I don’t know.” The Martian replied, “But I think we better find out.” 

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Hours later and miles away from San Francisco, two men stood in an office, the roaring fire in the fireplace the only source of light in the room. One of the men was dressed in a fashionable and expensive suit while the other wore armour that was black and orange, even his helmet. The man wearing the suit stood in front of the fire, his back to the other and a drink in his hand. After taking a small sip of his beverage, he addressed the armoured man.

“I have to admit, it’s impressive that you were able to create an earthquake. How did you pull that off?” The man in the suit wondered.

“It’s amazing the type of technology one can find, especially for the right price, as you well know.” The man in black and orange replied.

“True,” The man in the suit agreed before asking another question, “But how does an earthquake and shooting at one of those, ‘superheroes’, get me what I want?”

“Simple. You drove him into hiding by going at him directly. Doing that again is only going to keep him there. If you want him to surface, you go after people he cares about, like his friends.” The other man explained.

“We had done that as well. It didn’t seem to work.” The one in front of the fireplace informed him.

“Clearly you didn’t hit the right spot. I however, know exactly which spots to push. Trust me, he’ll come.”

“For your sake, I hope you’re right Deathstroke.” The man in the suit stated, taking another sip of his drink.

Under his helmet, Sade Wilson smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Nightwing will return. And when he does, he’ll be all yours.”


	2. Past Demon

Nearly two days after the earthquake, Kaldur, Wally, Artemis, M’gann, Connor, Roy, Tim, Barbara, Bart, and Jaime stood in the main room of the Watchtower where they gathered whenever they were given their missions and assignments. With them were five members of the Justice League. Batman, Superman, Black Canary, Wonder Woman, and the Flash. No one had been told exactly why the meeting was called, but they were pretty sure they knew. Jaime, and the rest of the Team had reported what happened in San Francisco. After M’Gann and Wally told the leading Justice League members of what they had found, or more accurately, what they didn’t find, the Justice League told them that they would look into it along with promising to keep them in the loop.

“It turns out that the San Francisco earthquake did not occur naturally.” Batman stated once he saw that everyone who had been called to this meeting was here.

“What? How could they do that?” Tim asked. He had never heard of someone or some way to purposely cause an earthquake. And judging from the expressions on everyone else’s faces, no one else had yet either.

“They used this.” Batman answered, then pulled up an image that looked a mix between a black box and a bomb of some kind.

As everyone stared at it, the Dark Knight continued, “It’s a portable machine that releases extreme vibrations. Superman found it buried right on the Faultline.”

“I’ve heard about a device like this, when I was with my Father, infiltrating the Light. I never knew that it was powerful enough to cause an earthquake though. Nor did I hear of any plans to use it.” Kaldur informed the group.

“Why would the Light want to cause an earthquake? Isn’t their goal to put themselves in power and discredit us so we can’t stop them? Purposely creating a disaster that kills and injures people kind of do the opposite of that?” Tim tried to understand why their enemies would do something like that.

“Maybe it wasn’t the Light. Maybe it was the person who shot at Blue Beetle. It could’ve been some elaborate plan to take us all out or something.” Batgirl chimed in.

“That’s what we need to find out. If there is someone targeting the Justice League or this team, we need to know and put a stop to him.” Superman replied.

“The League will help when we can and if needed, but due to new evidence of the Light’s plans and their growing power, they are requiring our full attention. So from now on, finding who did this and why is this team’s top priority. And to be on the safe side, we are limiting the amount of missions you will be assigned and we will be closely monitoring any missions you do go on.” Batman revealed, much to the shock of the others.

“What? But Batman,” Barbara started, then stopped when her mentor gave her his signature glare.

“It’s just until we know more.” Black Canary spoke up, trying to ease the sudden tension, “If you all are being targeted, we need to keep you safe. You will still be allowed out in the field, just on missions that are safer.”

Every member of the Team looked annoyed, frustrated and angry, none more so than Roy, Wally, Conner, M'gann and Artemis. They remembered how it was back when they first started, how overprotective and at times, overbearing the Justice League when they started doing missions on their own. Of course they knew that it was just because the older heroes wanted to keep them safe, but as they got older it became almost unbearable. The last thing they wanted was to deal with that again.

“But this isn’t necessary. We can take care of ourselves.” Cassie objected.

“We know that you are all strong, and good, capable fighters, but when something like this happens, we need to make your safety a priority.” Wonder Woman countered the argument.

“Well, finding him shouldn’t be that hard. There’s always a trail.” Tim remarked. After all, finding someone wasn’t that hard when you had been trained by the World’s Greatest Detective.

“We will get right to it.” Kaldur told the members of the League, who nodded and dismissed them.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

“How’s it going Tim?” Barbara asked as she talked into the Watchtower’s computer room with two mugs of coffee.

“Harder than I thought it would be. Because of the earthquake, pretty much all of the power was off in the city except for the buildings that have emergency generators. So there’s no traffic cameras, security cameras or any other kind of cameras that caught anything.” Tim informed her as he took the mug she offered him and took a small sip of the hot drink, not wanting to burn his tongue.

“Forgot about that. Do we have any way to see what happened?” Barbara wondered, pulling up a chair to sit beside him.

“I’m going through all the footage that had been taken by the reporters and the ones that had been taken by civilians who posted it online. Might get lucky and see something in the background. I’ve also pulled up images taken by the closest satellite. Could find something there.” Tim replied, taking another sip of the coffee. He had only been at this for a couple of hours, but with spending almost ten hours San Francisco helping civilians, then doing patrol in Gotham and school, he needed all the caffeine he could get. It didn’t help that he didn’t get any sleep the two nights before that either.

“Well, move over and I’ll give you a hand.” Barbara said, elbowing him a little to get him to move. Well aware of Batgirl’s skills on a computer, Tim did as he was told. Maybe they’d actually find something in time for him to get a quick nap in before patrol with Batman.

“Thanks.” Tim responded. Barbara only smiled and got straight to work.

It was over three hours later that Tim finally spotted something strange on a satellite image. He squinted at it, not trusting his judgment because her needed more coffee, turned to Barbara and asked, “Barbara, is it just me, or is that a person there, on the roof?”

Barbara turned from her own screen to look at Tim’s. She frowned at the image before she pulled the keyboard from the teenager and started typing. Tim tried to follow what she was doing but she was typing so fast and was pulling up something that he had never seen before. Man, he really needed more coffee.

Making a mental note to get some once Barbara explained what she was doing, he said, “You going to tell me what you’re doing?”

“I’m running the image through this new program I created to help focus and zoom in on what we want without it getting all distorted.” Barbara answered, keeping her eyes on the screen.

Tim nodded, then waited for her to finish. When she did, his eyes widened and any feeling of exhaustion fled. He leaned forward and whispered, “Is that…”

“Let me zoom in more.” Barbara told him, not wanting to believe what she was seeing, but after she went in closer, there was no way she could deny the black and orange clad figure on the roof.

“Deathstroke, it was Deathstroke.” Tim said, feeling as though a dark thunder cloud had just descended over them.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

“And you’re sure it’s Deathstroke?” Artemis couldn’t help but ask. She remembered the first time they went up against mercenary, back when they were younger, only a little after a year she joined the Team. From the looks on Wally’s, Kaldur’s, Roy’s, M’gann’s, and Conner’s faces, they also remembered. La’gaan, Bart, Jaime, Gar, and Cassie, who were also in the room while the others were on a different mission, had never met him or fought him or even knew what happened four years ago, but they all knew who he was. Deathstroke had quite the reputation after all.

“Yes, we’re sure.” Barbara answered. She hadn’t been part of the Team at that point but she had just been starting as Batgirl and therefore knew from Dick what had happened. Or at least, some of it. Dick didn’t really want to talk about it and Barbara didn’t blame him, not when she saw how badly injured he was.

“Why do you guys sound like our job just got a lot harder? We know who it is. We just now have to track him down.” La’gaan said, not seeming to understand the severity of the situation. Then again, he always had been overconfident.

“Dude, Deathstroke, aka Slade Wilson, is the deadliest assassin for hire, ever. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could take on the League of Shadows.” Wally replied, waving his arms around as he did so.

Kaldur frowned at Kid Flash’s response before he said, “That might be a slight exaggeration Wally, but he is right that Deathstroke is quite good at his job, which ranges anywhere from procuring something to killing someone.”

“And since he was trying to kill Jaime, I think we know what kind of job he was hired for this time.” Roy spoke up, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Then we need to find him.” Bart exclaimed, punching his fist into his hand.

“If he was hired to attack us, should we find whoever hired him? Isn’t that more important than finding and stopping Deathstroke?” Cassie wondered. When everyone turned to look at her, she started to explain, “If we stop Deathstroke, whoever hired him will just hire another assassin. So shouldn’t be finding his boss be our top priority?”

“She’s got a point.” Jaime agreed with Wonder Girl.

“Yes she does, but in order to find out who hired him, we need to find him first.” Kaldur replied to Cassie’s question.

“I highly doubt that Deathstroke is just going to tell us who he’s working for.” Conner said.

“True, but if we find him, he might be able to find what name he’s using, or a phone, or email address, or credit card. Then we might be able to track the numbers, addresses, or money which could lead us to whoever hired him.” Tim informed the group.

“So how do we find him?” Gar asked, looking at Kaldur as he was the leader. Kaldur exchanged looks with M’gann, Conner, Roy, Wally, Artemis, and Barbara.

“Deathstroke will not be easy to locate. He is very skilled.” Kaldur responded.

“We are going to need Dick’s help.” Barbara told them. She didn’t hesitate to use Nightwing’s real name. Once the invasion was over, Dick decided that he wanted to keep no more secrets from the Team and told the newest members his real name as the original members already knew it. Tim and Barbara also told them their identities after Dick did. Needless to say, Batman was not happy when he learned what they had done.

“What? Why would we want that traitor’s help?” La’gaan demanded angrily.

“Okay first off, Dick didn’t betray anyone. He just kept his plan a secret which he believed was for the best.” Artemis quickly defended Nightwing. It had been seven months and La’gaan was still furious with not knowing what was going on and it was driving her nuts.

“He should’ve trusted us!” La’gaan shouted.

“Calm down La’gaan. We’ve talked about this.” M’Gann reminded him with a quiet voice.

“But why do we even need his help. We are perfectly capable of finding this guy without Dick’s help.” La’gaan responded.

“Dick has gone up against Deathstroke before. He’s probably the one who knows his methods best which mean he is the best person to find him.” Kaldur told him.

“I don’t know about this.” Wally said, feeling conflicted due to his mixed feelings towards his best friend, or his former best friend. He didn’t really know where their relationship stood anymore, not after fighting during the invasion and not talking for seven months. He also didn’t like the idea of bringing Dick in to find and fight Slade. He knew how badly the mercenary had messed up the former Robin last time they fought.

“Me either.” Jamie agreed.

Kaldur looked around at the members of the Team. All of them looked uncertain, even Tim and Barbara, even Artemis. So, Kaldur sighed and said, “Alright, we will hunt down Deathstroke ourselves. But as Team leader, if I think we need help, we will ask for it, understood?”

Reluctantly, the others nodded. Then, they got started on a plan to find Slade Wilson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So everyone knows everyone’s secret identity. I can’t remember who all knew, but it seemed like the original team members knew who Dick was, but I wasn’t sure if they knew that Robin was Tim and Batgirl was Barbara. And it looks like in season 3, everyone knows everyone’s identity. Hope you all liked this chapter.


	3. Attack on Justice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I’ve been doing my best to keep every character accurate to who they are in the show, but when it comes to La’gaan, well, there’s a good chance that he’s character might be a bit OOC. I don’t know much about his character, and I feel like we didn’t actually get to see much of who he is on the show besides just him reacting to things, so in this chapter since he has bit of a part to play, I just wrote him the way I saw him as based on the show. If I did it wrong, sorry.

Groaning, Tim let his head fall onto the keyboard, then mumbled, “I’m a failure.”

“What?” The newest Robin heard Cassie ask, followed by the sound of her footsteps coming up from behind him.

“I can’t find him.” Tim told her, moving his head so he was lying on his cheek instead of on his forehead.

“Deathstroke?” Cassie replied, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I thought it would be easy. After all, I found out who Batman is on my own. But he’s like, impossible to track, which makes sense because he’s on practically every single police watch list. Kaldur wasn’t kidding when he said that Deathstroke was skilled. I even looked to see if Nightwing made notes about Deathstroke, because apparently they fought each other before, but nothing, which was actually surprising because Bruce taught us to take notes of everything but there was nothing at all.” Tim informed her, sitting up in his chair.

“Oh you’ll find him. I know you will.” Cassie assured him. Tim didn’t say anything but he didn’t look like he believed her.

“You know what might help?” Cassie said, moving around him so she could crouch down in front of him, “A break.”

“I don’t have time to take a break.” Tim responded.

Cassie let out a slightly annoyed sigh and said, “You’ve been at this for two days straight, only getting three to four hours of sleep at most and haven’t been eating enough to keep an animal alive. You look like a zombie, and an exhausted one at that. And a smelly one to be honest. You should go home, get some sleep, take a shower and eat some of Alfred’s amazing food.”

Tim couldn’t deny that Alfred’s cooking sounded really good right now, but the Team was counting on him to find Deathstroke, especially since Barbara was gone right now writing her college midterms. The longer it took to find the assassin, the longer the League would limit their missions.

“But,” Tim started only for Wonder Girl to cut him off, “It’s going to be a lot harder to find him if you’re so exhausted that you can’t focus on what you’re doing.”

The teenage was saved from trying to argue that with his girlfriend when an alarm suddenly started blaring all through the Watchtower. Within seconds, they heard the sound of footsteps running down the towards the main room by the zeta tubes. Tim and Cassie exchanged confused and worried looks before they both stood up and rushed out of the room to find out what had happened. By the time they got there, Kaldur, Wally, Artemis, Roy, M’gann, Conner, La’gaan, Bart, Jaime and Gar were already there with Captain Marvel.

“What’s going on?” Tim asked as they entered the area.

“Someone set the Hall of Justice on fire.” Wally reported. Tim’s eyes widened to the size of saucepans.

“What? How? Who?” Cassie questioned, too shocked to form complete sentences.

“We don’t know who or how they did it, but they did. I’m on my way there now.” Captain Marvel answered, then started making his way to the zeta-tubes.

“Wait! Let us come!” Bart shouted as he zipped towards the League member and stopped right in front of him. 

“Batman said that you are all to stay here as it is most likely a trap by the Light. And with someone shooting at Blue Beetle only a couple of days ago, it is better to be safe than sorry.” Captain Marvel responded.

“But it’s the Hall of Justice. As the Team that does the jobs that the League can’t, and since a bunch of us are partners with the League members, we should be there to help.” La’gaan argued.

Captain Marvel stared at the group, an uncertain expression on his. After a few seconds, he said, “But Batman said,”

“You seriously telling us you’re scared of Batman?” La’gaan asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You’re not?” Captain Marvel asked with an incredulous tone. La’gaan tensed up and turned around to face the other members of the Team and saw that from the expressions on their faces that they were on Captain Marvel’s side about this.

“But most of the Justice League is off world. You guys are going to need all the help you can get. And we could totally handle anything the Light could throw at us.” Bart told him confidently.

“Impulse, Lagoon Boy. Captain Marvel had his orders, as do we. We are to remain here.” Kaldur chimed in, walking over to his fellow Atlantean. La’gaan glared at him but the sound of the zeta-tube firing up had everyone’s heads turning towards it in time to see Captain Marvel vanish.

“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you would listen to Batman. After all, you blindly follow whatever orders Batman or any of his partners give you no matter the consequences or what your teammates think.” La’gaan retorted quietly which made his words hit Kaldur that much harder.

“La’gaan, that’s enough.” Artemis warned him. La’gaan didn’t acknowledge her, he just continued glaring at Kaldur who met the glare with one of his own.

Once the entire truth came out about Artemis’s ‘death’ and Kaldur’s ‘betrayal’, the teammate who still didn’t know were, understandably, upset. As a matter of fact, the ones that had been told or found out earlier were still upset that they had been lied to, tricked, and had their emotions played the way they were. Dick, having been the mastermind of the whole thing, took the brunt of the blame and the hurtful and angry words that had been thrown at him. La’gaan however, not only had some words for Dick, but also for Kaldur. The fact that they were both from Atlantis and served Aquaman made it more difficult for La’gaan to accept him being the team leader after faking his betrayal, even after seven months.

“You have made your feelings and thoughts about how we handled the invasion and about my being the team leader again perfectly clear over the passed several months but have refused to move on or accept that I am the leader. If you are unable to do that, it might be time to bring this matter to the Justice League.” Kaldur broke the tension-filled silence, his normal monotone voice having a sharp edge to it. Though Aquaman’s sidekick always seemed to have an infinite amount of patience, after seven months, it was clear that La’gaan had found the line and was about to cross it.

“Maybe we should. All I know is, I’m not going to do whatever a Bat or traitor tells me to.” La’gaan shot at him before turning around and stomping off towards the zeta-tube.

“La’gaan, we were told to stay here.” M’Gann reminded him, floating over to where Kaldur stood.

“I’m not going to let some stupid order stop me from helping innocent people. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?” La’gaan asked. Without waiting for a response, he punched in his code and the zeta-tube beamed him away.

The seconds following La’gaan’s departure passed in shocked silence before Roy asked, “Should we go after him?”

“Personally, I think we should leave him to the wrath of Batman. He totally deserves it.” Conner replied, which didn’t really surprise anyone. Everyone knew that Superboy was most definitely not Lagoon Boy’s biggest fan. Actually, due to his attitude since the invasion, he didn’t really have any fans among the Team.

“I will notify Batman of what happened. If he wants someone to bring him back, I will go get him, but it might be more trouble to do that instead of just letting him help.” Kaldur told the group. He then walked off to go find a communicator.

The group of teenagers and young adults stared at each other, not really knowing what to do now when Wally came up with an idea.

“You guys wanna go to the living room and watch the Justice League put out the fire on TV?”

“Yeah, sure.” Artemis said. Everyone else nodded in agreement and headed to the living room.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

After watching the Justice League put out the fire, they soon got bored just watching them clean up the damage done to the Hall of Justice. Kaldur, having been told by Batman that he would deal with La’gaan personally, went swimming in the pool that had been specially added for Aquaman was open for anyone to use. Tim and Cassie went back to looking for Deathstroke. Gar, Conner, and M’gann went to the kitchen to make some muffins and cookies for the heroes once they got back from cleaning up the Hall of Justice. And Roy, Artemis, and Wally went to the training room where the two archers decided to have a friendly competition.

“Nice shot Artemis, but I can do better.” Roy said, looking at the target that now had an arrow sticking out of the center.

“Yeah, right.” Artemis scoffed, making her way to stand by Wally as Roy got into position. He drew his arrow and got ready to fire when the alarm once again started blaring. Unlike last time though, the automated voice said, _Medics to the zeta-tubes_ , over and over on repeat. Roy immediately dropped his bow and arrow and started running towards the room with the zeta-tubes, Artemis right on his heels while Wally sped past them.

“What happened now?” Roy asked as he entered the room with Artemis.

“I have no idea.” Kaldur answered.

_Recognized Superman, 01, Lagoon Boy, B18._

The Team all turned to face the zeta-tubes in time to see Superman appear, holding a limp figure, who they soon realized was La’gaan.

“What happened?” Wally demanded while Kaldur asked, “Is he okay?”

“He was shot by someone while we were trying to clean up the debris.” Superman answered as he started rushing down the hall towards the infirmary as the Team followed behind him.

“Is he going to be okay?” M’gann repeated Kaldur’s question, flying by Superman’s head so she could get a good look at La’gaan.

The Atlantean looked awful. There were two bullet wounds, one in his left shoulder, another in his stomach. There was so much blood though that if it wasn’t for the completely soaked bandages, she wouldn’t have been able to tell where the wounds actually were. Someone obviously tried to stabilize him before Superman brought him here. She hoped that they got him here in time.

“I don’t know yet.” The Kryptonian replied to the Martian’s question as they reached the infirmary.

That was the last thing he said before he carried the injured hero through the doors that led to the operating room and the recovery rooms. The other heroes remained in what was dubbed the waiting room even though it was basically just the hallway leading to those doors that had some chairs placed along the walls. They all wanted to go in, to make sure that their teammate would be alright, but they knew the rules. Unless they were actually doctors or nurses or had any experience dealing with injuries besides bandaging and stitches, they were not allowed back there until the person was stable and in recovery. It was a rule that they had unfortunately become all too familiar with over the years.

“I should have gone after him.” Kaldur whispered to himself as he stared at the doors. If he had gone after La’gaan when he first left, then he could have brought him back before he was shot.

“This isn’t your fault Kaldur.” Conner told him, having heard him with his super hearing, “You gave him an order and he disobeyed it. This is all on him and whoever shot him.”

Kaldur turned around to face him and opened his mouth to say something when he saw Batman and Dr. Mid-Nite coming towards them. While the doctor walked past them and through the doors, Batman stopped when he reached them and said, “The shooter was Deathstroke. Wonder Woman saw him.”

Tim felt a surge of guilt run through his body. He hadn’t told Bruce that it was Slade Wilson who had tried to kill Jaime, he wanted to prove to his mentor that he could do this himself without his help. And while the Team is supposed to report to the Justice League, since they were now experienced, adult, members of the group, they were given more freedom and had become more responsible with anything pertaining specifically to their team. However, if he had gotten Bruce’s help in the beginning, he might have been able to find him before he could shoot La’gaan.

“What?” Batman almost barked when he saw the expression on his protege’s face.

“Batgirl and I found proof that it was Deathstroke who shot at Blue Beetle in San Francisco.” Tim admitted, using Barbara and Jamie’s hero names on purpose. Even though everyone knew everyone’s secret identity, in the Watchtower and when out on missions, Bruce insisted that they used their hero names. Since the billionaire looked mad enough about what all happened, he didn’t want to risk doing anything to make it worse.

“Have you managed to locate him?” Batman then asked.

“No, not yet.” Tim answered. After thinking for a brief second, he announced, “Until he is found, this team is now officially benched.”

“What?” Roy practically shouted.

“He tried to kill Blue Beetle, he successfully shot Lagoon Boy and both times he managed to escape. Odds are, he is the one who planted the device in San Francisco that caused the earthquake and started the Hall of Justice fire. And since he didn’t try to kill any of the Justice League members, it is clear his target is this Team. That means you are all in danger when you go out as heroes and unless we learn more, we are not putting your lives at risk.” Batman explained. When he saw that Tim was about to protest, he added, “This decision is non-negotiable.”

With that, he turned around and walked away, leaving the group too stunned to do or say anything else.

“It is time to contact Dick.” Kaldur suddenly stated, effectively getting everyone’s attention.

“But Kaldur,” Wally started but Aqualad quickly cut him off.

“We agreed that if we are unable to find Deathstroke and if I decided we need help, we will call Dick and get his help.”

“It’s only been two days though. I’m sure with more time we will find him, especially with evidence we can gather from the Hall of Justice.” Tim assured the leader.

“Are you all willing to risk the lives of everyone on this Team because you refuse to let go of your anger towards Dick? Because next time Deathstroke comes back, he might actually kill someone.” Kaldur pointed out.

Gar, M’gann, Conner, Roy, Artemis, Wally, Tim and Cassie exchanged looks then reluctantly nodded in agreement. Everyone except for Artemis still seemed a bit upset about it, but they knew that Kaldur was right. Not only did they need help, but enough time had passed of them ignoring Dick. Maybe getting him involved would be good for the entire Team, maybe they could go back to the way they were. Even though he was still a bit upset at how Dick handled everything, he had to admit that he missed his self-proclaimed brother.

“I’ll call him.” Tim told the group and made his way down the hall for some privacy. He pulled up Dick’s contact information, dialed his number, and held the phone to his ear. It rang once, then he felt his heart drop to his feet when he heard what the recorded voice said.

_“The number you have dialed has been disconnected.”_


	4. Ghosted

Tim sat silently in the passenger seat of Barbara’s car. The redhead was also quiet as she focused on the road that was taking them to Bludhaven then to Dick’s apartment. They were both dressed in their civilian clothes but in their minds, this was a mission. One that they were both taking seriously despite the mixed emotions they were feelings.

Right after Tim first called Dick and learned that the number was disconnected, he tried two more times just to be sure, then went back to the waiting room and told the others. They were all shocked when they heard that and Wally immediately tried to call Dick himself, not believing at all that his best friend would disconnect his phone number, especially without telling them. What if they needed to reach him? But Wally soon learned that Tim was telling the truth. Roy also tried to call Dick but also found that the number didn’t work. Everyone them looked through their text messages to see if Dick texted them to let them know that he was changing his phone number and wanted to make sure that they had his new one, but there was nothing. That was when they realized that the last time he had texted any of them was over three months ago.

Tim then called Barbara to let her know what happened to La’gaan and what they just learned about Dick. After she freaked out then calmed down, the two made their plan to go see the first Robin in the morning, which they were now doing.

“You think Dick’s okay?” Tim asked when he could no longer bear the silence. The more he thought about it, the worse he felt.

When he looked back on the texts his ‘brother’ had sent him, he found that they were all ‘how are you doing’ or ‘heard about the Arkham breakout, you okay’ or ‘congrats on catching Mr. Freeze’. Not once did he ask to meet up to talk. Not once did he try to explain himself or defend himself. He was clearly trying to give the space they had all asked for while letting him know that he still cared about them. And Tim didn’t ever respond, at all. He never said that he was doing okay, never said that they managed to catch all the criminals that escaped Arkham had been caught and he was okay, and he didn’t say thanks. He just ignored all the texts, barely reading any of them. Some brother he was.

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Barbara answered, more forcefully than was needed which let Tim know that she too was worried that something bad had happened to him. Noticing the disbelieving look on his face, she added, “He probably was super busy with something and kept forgetting to pay his phone bill so they disconnected it.”

“Yeah, probably.” Tim responded though he didn’t really bother hiding that he didn’t believe her. But if that’s what Barbara was telling herself to stay calm until they saw Dick and got answers, then he wasn’t going to tell her otherwise.

The rest of the ride passed in silence and before either of them knew it, they were parking the car in front of the apartment building. Without a word, they got out, entered the building, went up the stairs to the top floor and down the floor to Dick’s apartment. Once they reached the door, they both froze. After seven months, they were finally going to see him face to face. Barbara took a deep breath, then raised her fist and knocked on the wooden door.

There was no answer. Both Tim and Barbara frowned but stayed quiet as Barbara knocked again. When there was still no answer, she called out, “Dick? It’s me and Tim. We need to talk.”

When about two minutes passed without any response, Barbara lost her patience and started banging on the door hard enough that the younger teenager thought she would actually knock it down. And when there was still no response, she started to shout, “Dick! Open up! If you don’t, I’m going to kick this door down!”

“Can I help you?” The two heroes turned their heads and saw a small, elderly woman standing by the stairs staring at them. Tim quickly recognized her as Dick’s landlady but he couldn’t remember her name.

“No, our friend is just refusing to open the door.” Barbara answered politely, giving the lady a smile.

“Maybe he’s at work. Did you check his schedule?” Tim questioned, looking back at Barbara.

“Mr. Grayson no longer lives here.” The landlady told them, completely shocking both the redhead and the dark-haired teenager.

“What?” The word escaped Tim’s mouth without his permission.

“He moved out three months ago. That apartment’s been empty ever since.” The elderly woman informed them.

“Do you know why or where he went? Did he leave a forwarding address or anything?” Barbara asked.

“I’m afraid not. It was all very sudden. All he said was that something had come up and he had to leave town.” She replied with remorse, as though she truly felt bad that she couldn’t help them.

“Thanks. Sorry for causing a ruckus.” Barbara apologized, feeling guilty that she had been pounding on a door and yelling for someone who wasn’t there.

“That’s quite alright dear.” The lady said with a smile. Tim and Barbara started heading to the stairs and as they passed the woman, Tim said, “Have a good day ma’am.”

“You too dears.” She replied.

Just like the walk up to the apartment, the walk to the car was silent. It wasn’t until they got in that Barbara gripped the steering wheel tight enough her fingers and knuckles turned white and revealed, “Okay, now I’m worried.”

“How can all of this have happened without any of us knowing?” Tim wondered, looking out the window at the apartment building.

“Us not talking to him probably had something to do with that.” Barbara commented with a somewhat snarky tone. Tim didn’t respond to that, knowing that she was right.

It wasn’t until they exited the city that the shock had worn off enough that his brain started to connect the dots.

“Three months.” Tim mumbled. He didn’t realize that he had spoken out loud until he heard Barbara ask, “What?”

“The landlady said Dick moved out three months ago. The last time he texted any of us was three months ago.” Tim told her.

“Which likely means that his phone was disconnected at that time.” Barbara started to understand what Tim was getting at. Glancing over at him, she said, “We need to find out what happened three months ago.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Barbara sat in front of the computer in the Batcave, documents, files, and online newspapers filled the screen. She had over ten tabs open and three different searches going, looking for anything and everything that happened three months ago that had occurred in Bludhaven or had something to do with Nightwing or Dick Grayson. She was going to find the acrobat if it was the last thing she did, and not just because they needed his help with Deathstroke. She needed to make sure that he was okay, and she needed to apologize. As one of the few members of the Team who knew him since childhood and spent the most time with him, she knew how he was struggling under the weight of leading the Team, protecting Gotham without Batman, and being in charge of Wayne Enterprises. And to learn of everything he had been keeping secret, instead of seeing how hard it must’ve been for him, she shunned him, angry that she wasn’t let in on the secret.

“That was Kaldur who called.” Tim informed her as he came over to her. He had been with her for most of the afternoon, but he got a phone call and left to answer it.

When Barbara turned to look up at him, the younger teenager continued, “La’gaan finally woke up.”

“How is he?” She asked. Dr. Mid-Nite had assured them all that La’gaan would be alright after they finished his surgery, but they didn’t know how long he would stay unconscious.

“He’s annoyed that he’s going to have a long recovery time and an even longer time bench from missions due to disobeying orders, but he’ll live.” Tim answered her, sitting in the chair beside her.

“That’s good.” Barbara commented somewhat absently.

“What is it?” Tim questioned, growing a little worried at the look in her blue eyes.

“Dick quit the Bludhaven police force three months ago. He also emptied out and closed all of his bank accounts, and since he did it in cash, I can’t track it. I’m now looking up his old aliases to see if he’s using any of them but, it’s almost like he was trying to disappear.” She revealed.

“I think he was.” Tim then said, causing her to look over at him. He grabbed his laptop that had been sitting on the desk near Barbara and turned it to face her.

“A little over three months ago, a total of six strange people showed up in Bludhaven wearing these strange suits. All of them went after Nightwing.” Tim informed her while she stared at the pictures.

It was hard to make out, which wasn’t surprising. A lot of pictures of heroes, especially ones of Batman and those affiliated with him, aren’t taken by professionals and are often taken during the night. As Barbara stared at the images, she was able to quickly recognize Nightwing, but the other one was someone she had never seen before and was harder to see. The figure was dressed in black and was slim, a lot like Dick, but the opponent was wearing what looked like metal shoulder pads with a gold trim. He also seemed to be wearing a golden gauntlet on one hand while the other held a sword. That was all she could make out.

“Do you know who they are?” The redhead inquired.

“No. I guess Dick managed to subdue them but they always escaped before they could be taken into custody. One actually killed two officers.” Tim answered, “And that’s not all.”

The younger hero turned the computer so he could reach the keyboard, typed something, then got out of the way so she could see it. It was a clip of a newspaper and as she read the headline, she felt her heart speed up to the point where she thought it was going burst out of her chest.

_Haly’s Circus Bombed in Washington!_

“Oh my G*d.” Barbara uttered in shock before she continued reading the article. It said that there was a lot of damage to the circus’s equipment and there were many injuries, but thankfully, no one was killed. Due to the extent of damage though, the circus was no longer running until they fixed the equipment they could and replaced what they couldn’t. They were lucky, it could’ve been a lot worse. Then, Barbara noticed the date the newspaper was printed. This all happened three months ago.

_Beep._

Both Tim and Barbara looked over at the Bat-computer. The redhead’s search was complete. Three months ago, under four different aliases, Dick had bought six airplane tickets all to different countries, and ten bus tickets all to different cities. They would have to look further into it, but already the two of them had a feeling that Dick didn’t actually use any of them. And, there was no activity under those identities, under any of his previously used identities since.

“We have to tell the Team.” Tim said, knowing that they would want to know what they had discovered. And maybe, Wally or Roy or Kaldur might know something that he and Barbara didn’t, something that could help them find the missing hero.

“We have to tell Bruce.” Barbara responded, looking over at him. Tim felt the urge to shudder and groan. That was not a conversation he was looking forward to having. Despite whatever happened between Batman and Nightwing, Dick Grayson was Bruce Wayne’s son and the billionaire loved him more than anyone knew and more than he showed.

“He’s off-world right now. He left late last night with Superman and some of the other Justice League members.” Tim reminded her. He was going to go tell Bruce about Dick’s number being disconnected but when he found him, his mentor told him that he was leaving with Superman, Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern to a planet that Hal believed the Light had visited for some reason. So, Tim kept his mouth shut, knowing that the mission was extremely important. If he had known then though what he and Barbara had just found out in the last few hours, he would have told him.

“We’ll tell him as soon as he gets back.” Tim told her, “Maybe by then we’ll have actually found him.”

“Hopefully.” Barbara mumbled then stood up, planning to go get her phone from her bag and said, “Until then though, we should tell the Team. I’ll call Kaldur, let him know that we’re coming and to make sure everyone is there.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let Alfred know where we’ll be.” Tim suddenly turned to her with a panicked expression and asked, “Should we tell Alfred what’s going on?”

Barbara froze in her path. She didn’t even think about the butler and whether or not he should be informed about Dick’s disappearance. While there wasn’t really anything he could do, he was basically the young man’s grandfather and deserved to know. Plus, if they didn’t tell him and he found out about it, he’d be pretty upset. And no one wanted to upset Alfred. Looking over at Tim, she said, “We’ll tell him once we get back from the Watchtower.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

The Team took the news as well as Tim thought they would. They were all completely shocked. Kaldur, Cassie, Bart, Jaime, M’gann, Conner and Artemis didn’t seem to even know how to respond. La’gaan was also shocked into silence, though the newest Robin doubted it would last. Wally and Roy looked as though all the blood in their bodies had been drained before Roy started asking for details while Wally started pacing around the room, just barely keeping from actually running around in a panic.

“How could he just vanish? He’s the son of Batman, doesn’t he have like, ten trackers in him? Can’t you find him using those?” Wally asked, hands waving in the air frantically as he kept moving.

“He disabled them, right at the same as he quit his job.” Barbara answered.

“And Bruce didn’t notice?” Roy sounded skeptical and Batman’s two portages didn’t blame him. Bruce tended to be so overprotective it boarded on paranoia. No one would be surprised if the billionaire had an alarm on his phone that would go off if any of the trackers were disabled.

“Bruce and Dick had a really big fight not long after the invasion. Don’t know what it was about but it was bad. Ever since, he hasn’t even mentioned him. And with everything going on with Lex Luthor trying to turn public opinion against us, with the Light and their crazy plans, and new metahumans popping up, checking in on Dick hasn’t really been a priority.” Tim revealed.

“So what do we do know?” Artemis wondered, her gaze shifting from Kaldur, to Barbara, to Tim.

“We find him.” Kaldur replied with a firm voice. When everyone looked over at him, he continued, “No matter what you all still may be feeling towards Dick, he is still a part of this Team. He is still one of us and the fact that this has all happened to him without any of us knowing shows that we’ve failed as friends and teammates. So now, we find him and make sure he is alright. And let us hope he is far more forgiving of our actions than we have shown to be of his.”


	5. Battle Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from the song Battle Scars by Lupe Fiasco and Guy Sebastian

_The full moon shone brightly in the sky, so bright that the stars were barely visible. The trees appeared silver under the moonbeams and it was from them a bird, a robin, flew up and into the open air. It flew high and free, happy._

_Then, out of nowhere, a white owl attacked. It grabbed the smaller bird, digging the talons into its feathers tight enough to make it bleed. The robin struggled with all its might to get free, but the owl wrapped its talons around the robin’s neck and squeezed before it broke with a sickening snap as the moon above turned into a large owl-like mask._

With a gasp, Dick shot up in his cot, sweat running down his forehead. He had been having the same nightmare on and off the last three months but it still shook him to the core. Glancing over at the clock that was on an old cardboard box he was using for a bedside table, he groaned and lied back down. It was only four in the morning, far too early to get up. Or at least, much earlier than he had been getting up lately. Back when he was in Bludhaven, patrolling as Nightwing and working with the Team, he’d have no problem getting up right now. He’d sometimes get up even earlier. But that had changed over the last several months.

Ever since he left the Team, Dick spent more and more time in his bed, which he knew was strange and knew that everyone else who knew him would see how out of character that was. The young acrobat hated staying still, even when he was a toddler. He had to keep moving, always. He remembered how hard a time he gave Bruce when he first moved into the Manor when it time for him to go to sleep. Now though, he welcomed it, looked forward to it. Because when he was wrapped tightly under the covers and resting in that drowsy state where you didn’t feel much of anything or know what was going on around you, he could almost pretend that it was his family and friends that were keeping him warm instead of the thick comforter and could almost forget that he basically had no friends or family anymore. Almost.

It wasn’t their fault though. He was the one who lied to them, who almost got them all killed. They had every right to be mad. Then again, the last time he saw them, the last time he actually spoke to them, only La’gaan seemed to be downright furious with him. The others seemed mostly hurt that he didn’t trust them enough to tell them the truth about Kaldur and Artemis. Roy and Artemis though, they appeared to be a little more than upset, but Dick knew that was because Wally almost died when he joined his uncle and Bart to help stop the bomb in the Arctic. Dick still felt guilty about that, but at least Blue Beetle gave them the warning in time. If Wally had died, Dick knew he’d never be able to forgive himself.

Batman, Bruce, on the other hand was a different story. He wasn’t all that impressed with the way Dick handled things and made that very clear to them once they got back to Gotham. Apparently, he thought that Nightwing should’ve done better, should’ve come up with a plan that wouldn’t have put so many in danger. And of course when he tried to explain why he did what he did, and point out that no one knew of Black Beetle’s plan to destroy earth, Bruce seemed to be deaf. And that didn’t surprise Dick actually. He had learned long ago that when Bruce learned something and formed an opinion on it, it was almost impossible to change his mind, so he didn’t even try. He just packed his stuff and headed back to Bludhaven.

For the first couple of weeks, he enjoyed the freedom of not being under Batman’s shadow and enjoyed no longer being under the stress of leading the Team. He felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, but soon, a new weight replaced it. Weight made up of guilt and loneliness. When he left the Team, they said that they just needed space to process everything and he respected that, understood that. But when that weight settled in, he reached out to them, just by text messages, and no response ever came. By the time he had contacted each member, except for La’gaan who was like a bomb that he didn’t want to set off, he realized that they were avoiding him.

He tried to give them more time before texting them again, and still no response was given, not even from Tim or Barbara, not even from Wally or Roy. He was starting to think that maybe he should call them, or just stop by. If there were still a lot of negative feelings towards them, maybe having him there to somewhat force them to talk about it would be better than just letting them sit and stew. But Dick also didn’t want to force to talk if they weren’t ready, so he continued giving them their space. Then, Bludhaven was attacked.

He didn’t know who they were or what their endgame was, and the ones that had been caught never spoke when interrogated. It took over a week of no sleep and pretty much non-stop fighting to take them down and during that entire time, not one hero came by to help. Not one hero, friend, family member contacted him to find out what was going on. Nightwing, Dick Grayson was truly on his own. So, he threw himself into finding out who had attacked his city, but it wasn’t until Haly’s Circus was bombed that he put the pieces together. Then, he went on the run.

It wasn’t as hard as Dick would’ve normally thought. He created a new identity, moved all of his money from his old bank account into a new one at a different bank under a different identity, one that he had just made and never used before. He then took out large amounts of cash and hid them in different cities all over the country and bought several prepaid credit cards so there was no official financial trail that could be used to find him. He moved all of his stuff out of his apartment and into a storage unit and paid up to two years on it so he wouldn’t have to go back to Bludhaven once he left, taking only what he needed. He then bought six plane tickets, all to different countries and all under aliases he used before and did the same with 10 bus tickets before hitchhiking to the closest city nearby and taking a bus to another city under a new alias that had never been used before, making it practically impossible to be found.

Actually, the only hard part was when he disconnected his phone number and destroyed his phone. It was the last thing that could connect him to his friends and family. He wanted to keep it, wanted it to be on him when someone, anyone, was finally ready to talk, but he couldn’t. It would be one of the first things that those hunting him would try to use to track him down. It would make everything else he did to hide himself pointless. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to end up dragging the people he cared about into this mess. So, he did what had to be done.

Dick turned around on his cot, trying to get comfortable enough to fall back asleep. While cots were never known to be particularly comfortable, Dick had gotten used to it after sleeping on one for three months, just like he had gotten used to living underground. He was good at adapting when he needed to and considering everything that had happened in his life, he needed it. As he closed his eyes though, he saw something blinking on his computer.

Groaning again, he forced himself out of bed and made his way to the other side of the small room where his computer sat on an old desk. Sitting down in the chair in front of it, his eyes widened slightly when he read what was on the screen. Before he went to bed, he had put an image of a person he suspected was one of the several people working for whoever was hunting him through a search program and it appeared it was done. He immediately started reading through what had all been found.

Dick started searching even more thoroughly, running background checks on him and every person he was connected with. He was not liking what he was finding. Odds were, he would have to move again and soon. He went to Detroit, to San Francisco, to New York, to Star City before landing in Chicago, and choosing an old office in an abandoned subway line as his ‘home’. He had been here for a month, longer than he had been in any of the other places that he went to. The only reason he had stayed this long was because he was sure that he had covered his tracks well enough that no one could find him. He was starting to realize that he was wrong.

Dick glanced down at his watch and saw that it was now six in the morning. Deciding that he should start his plan on getting out of town, he started saving all of the research he had done in the last two hours when something else came up on his screen, blinking in red, large letters.

_INTRUDER!_

Someone had tripped one of his silent alarms. Someone had found him.


	6. The Return

Dick immediately pulled up the security feed for the camera’s he had installed all of the surrounding tunnels. There was a chance that it might just be some teenagers doing something stupid or a homeless person looking for shelter and he didn’t want to activate the other security measures he in place if that was the case. He would have a lot of explaining to do if that happened. However, he didn’t see anyone at all, which meant that either the whole thing was a false alarm, or whoever had tripped the alarm was avoiding the cameras. Not wanting to take any chances, he grabbed one of his escrima sticks and a small remote that controlled his traps for intruders and stalked out of his room.

Doing his best to stay in the shadows, though it didn’t matter that much. The tunnels were practically pitch black except for the occasional emergency light that was always on. Unless he went and found the light switch or board or whatever it was that turned the main lights on in a subway tunnel, the place would stay dark which is what he wanted. Upon hearing hushed whispers, he stopped and listened closely. He couldn’t recognize the voices, though they did sound familiar and the only words he could pick up was ‘he’s down here somewhere.’

Now sure whoever was down here was looking for him, Dick pulled out the remote, waited until he was sure they were in the right spot and pressed the button. The lasers he had set up when he first moved into the subway immediately activated, creating a cage around the intruders. The only way they could escape was if they somehow shrunk, were willing to get burned or if he turned it off. However, the red light on the lasers enabled him to clearly see who had tripped his alarms.

“Barbara? Tim?” Dick exclaimed with surprise. Out of everything he thought he would find, those two never made the list, especially dressed in their civilian clothes.

“Hey Dick. You wanna let us out?” Barbara asked, gesturing to all the lasers. Dick quickly pulled the small remote and turned them off, making the designed cage disappear. Once it was gone, the two stood up and made their way towards them.

“You guys okay?” Dick asked as he looked them over, though with he couldn’t see them that well due to lack of light.

“Yeah, we’re fine.” Tim replied, dusting off his knees. Behind him, Barbara did the same thing. It looked as though they had been walking around in the subways for a while.

“So, what are you doing here?” Dick wondered as he started to led them towards the old office room in the subway line that he had been living in.

“Looking for you.” Barbara answered, “We tried to call you, but your phone was disconnected. We then found that you moved out of your apartment, quit your job, took out all your money and closed your accounts and basically disappeared off the face of the planet.”

As they reached the door to the room, Tim chimed in, “It took me four days to figure out that despite buying several plane and bus tickets, you left Bludhaven before the days those tickets were booked and by hitchhiking to the nearest town with a bus station. Then it took another five days to find all the places you went to before you ended up here in Chicago.”

“I’m impressed. I thought the only person who would be able to figure it out would be Bruce.” Dick replied, shooting Tim a grin as he turned the light on. Sitting down in the chair by his table, he asked, “Why did you guys track me down?”

“We need your help.” Tim responded, keeping his head up and looking in Dick’s direction but not meeting his eyes.

“With what?” Dick wondered. He had been somewhat keeping an eye out on what the Team was doing through the news and they seemed to be doing just fine for the last few months, though he ending up stopping when he left Bludhaven. And if they needed help, they had the Justice League. What happened that made them need his help so badly that they put in the effort to track him down?

“Deathstroke, he’s back.” Barbara revealed. Dick immediately sat up straight, his eyes widened and his skin paled. Tim frowned at his reaction. He still didn’t know what had happened before between Dick and Slade Wilson, but it obviously wasn’t good.

“He apparently, planted this device in San Francisco that caused that massive earthquake, then tried to kill Jaime. He missed though. He then set the Hall of Justice on fire and shot La’gaan, twice.” The redhead continued.

“Is he alright?” Dick asked worriedly.

“Yeah, he’s going to be okay, but he won’t be on any missions for a while.” Tim answered and Dick visibly calmed down a little.

“Actually, none of us are allowed out in the field until we find him. Bruce doesn’t even really want us on patrol in Gotham.” The latest Robin continued. Dick wasn’t surprised by that. There had been many times when he was Robin and when he started as Nightwing that Bruce would bench him from patrol if he thought it was too dangerous.

“Why are you guys asking me? You managed to find me fairly quickly apparently, you seem more than capable of tracking down Deathstroke.” Dick pointed out.

“I’ve tried, both of us have. But he’s too good.” Tim told him and before Dick could say anything to that, Barbara added, “You know Deathstroke better than any of the Team. If anyone could find him, it’s you.”

“Bruce won’t help?” Dick then asked, slouching in his seat, knowing that for some reason his adoptive father couldn’t. Otherwise, neither of them would be here.

“He’s off-world, League business.” Barbara informed him.

Dick was silent as he thought it all over. As happy as he was to see Tim and Barbara, the fact that they only came to him because they needed his help stung. After seven months, over half a year, he would’ve thought that they’d have forgiven him by now. At this point, he wondered if they ever would. He knew that he messed up in how he handled the invasion, knew he deserved their anger but he didn’t think they’d be so angry for so long. Then again, they didn’t have to seek him out. They could have decided to just keep trying themselves when they first tried to reach him and failed.

“So you guys tracked me down after seven months of no contract, because you need my help.” Dick surmised.

“Well,” Barbara started then stopped with a guilty look on her face. Guilt for only tracking him down because he was needed or guilt for waiting seven months to contact him, Dick didn’t know.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Tim admitted, an expression of guilt on his own face as well.

“What are you doing here anyways?” Barbara asked, glancing around the room, her expression of guilt turning to one of slight disgust which didn’t surprise Dick. It looked like a homeless person’s hideout, which he supposed it technically was. The place was dirty, there was old pizza and cereal boxes scattered around the room, there was a cot with an old and ratty sleeping bag and pillow on it, and behind him, was a table which served as a desk with a laptop on it as well as a bunch of files and papers.

“In Chicago?” Dick wondered.

“In Chicago, and in the subway.” Barbara clarified.

“And why did you quit your job, close your bank accounts and basically go on the run?” Tim jumped in with his own questions.

“I’ve been busy tracking this criminal organization, but they were getting to close to me. Figured it would be easier to find them and turn them in if they couldn’t find me.” Dick answered, leaving out exactly who the group was and why they were after him. They didn’t need to know, it was had nothing to do them and the last thing he wanted to do was drag them into it.

“What group is it?” Tim wondered.

“You don’t know them.” Dick told him, not wanting Tim to know the name. He and Bruce had dealt with the Court in Gotham, where they are based, back when Jason was Robin and Dick didn’t want to take the chance that Tim might recognize the name or would try to search through Bruce’s files about them and find out some things that Nightwing didn’t want him to know.

“Those six attackers you faced in Bludhaven were a part of them?” Barbara inquired.

“Yeah.” Dick confirmed.

“They also the ones who bombed Haly’s Circus?” Batgirl continued questioning him and Dick nodded, “Yes.”

“And did it ever occur to you to ask for help?” Tim said, crossing his arms.

“Would you have picked up if I did?” Dick then asked with a pointed look, hoping to get the subject off of the group that was basically hunting him and onto what they came here for.

“Look Dick, we know things have, been well,” Barbara again paused, not exactly sure how to word that but decided to skip it and continued, “but we need your help. We need you to come back to the Team.”

“And the Team is on board with this?” He couldn’t really see the others being happy about having him back if they were still mad at him.

“They’re freaking out about you right now. You should have seen their faces when we told them that you were missing.” Barbara told him, sounding upset that he seemed to think that they didn’t care, and honestly, he actually was a little surprised that they were worried about him.

“I, I don’t know guys. I have my hands full with this group right now.” Dick hesitantly replied after a minute of thinking about it.

“Have they attacked anywhere or anyone else since you went off the grid?” Tim asked, even though he knew that answer was no. He and Barbara had checked that while they were looking for him, thinking that maybe those that were after him had caught him.

“No.” Dick answered honestly, not liking where this was going.

“Then, it’s likely that as long as they don’t know where you are, they won’t do anything.” The younger teenager concluded.

“Well, I suppose,” Tim quickly cut him off and said, “Then you can use the zeta-tubes to come to the Watchtower and work from there. No one will find you there.”

“But this group,” Dick started to object before he was cut off again, this time by Barbara.

“We can help you take them down, once we deal with Deathstroke.”

When Dick didn’t say anything, Tim took a step closer to him and said, “Please Dick, I’ve tried, but I can’t find him. And since he’s targeting our Team, the League has decided that we aren’t allowed out in the field. But with the League so busy with the Light and what they are doing out in space, they’re stretched too thin. We need to stop Deathstroke so we can help take down the Light.”

“And if we do manage to take down Deathstroke, then he won’t be able to hurt _anyone_ ” Barbara emphasised the word, “ever again.”

For a long moment, no one said anything. Dick really did want to help them and did want to see the others, but he didn’t want to drag them into his mess. And he wasn’t sure if he could handle seeing how angry they might still be in person. Even if Barbara was telling the truth and everyone was worried about him, once they saw that he was okay, they would probably remember how mad they still were. Then again, he still had the occasional nightmare about what Deathstroke did to him and he didn’t want that to happen to his friends.

So he sighed and said, “Okay.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

After he finished checking in with the few League members he could, Kaldur headed towards the training room. True, the Team was not allowed on missions until Deathstroke was found, but that was no reason to stop training. They all needed to stay on top of their game, not only to catch the man who was after them, but for when they started going on missions again.

Upon entering the training room, he quickly spotted his teammates. Jaime, Gar, and Cassie were on the mat sparring, La’gaan was sitting on a bench while Artemis, Wally, Roy, M’gann and Conner stood around the two teens. Occasionally, one of them spoke up, giving them pointers on how to better block or attack the other. The only sound besides that was the sound of Jaime and Cassie’s grunts and deep breathing. He stood in the doorway and observed for about a minute before his appearance was noticed.

“Any word from Barbara or Tim?” Artemis inquired when she Kaldur walk through the door. Everyone else turned their heads towards the leader, waiting for his answer.

“No, not yet.” The Atlantean regretfully replied, shaking his head once.

“Do you think they’ll find him?” Wally wondered, a worried expression on his face. Ever since they realized that Dick had basically disappeared, guilt and fear filled his entire body, and he needed to know to that his best friend was okay.

“Tim seemed pretty sure that Dick’s in Chicago, but that’s about it. And Chicago is a big city.” Kaldur answered before a loud and annoyed scoff came from La’gaan’s direction, but Kaldur ignored it and continued, “But I’m sure they will.”

“Ignore him.” M’gann told the others when she saw their angry expression at how La’gaan was acting.

Over the last several days as Tim and Barbara searched for Dick using the computers and cameras, Wally and Roy went to all of Dick’s favourite hiding spots and places he would go to when he was younger but came up with nothing, and the longer it took and the more dead ends they hit caused everyone to get more and more worried. The anger that they felt, anger that was already leaving due to time of processing it all, immediately disappeared. The only person who refused to let it go was La’gaan. He was stubbornly holding on to it all, probably more out of bruised pride than anything, and made it well known he didn’t want Nightwing to get involved. It was starting to get hard to ignore it, especially for Conner who never got along with him that well in the first place.

“Who are we ignoring?” Bart asked as he literally slid into the room after running so fast. While everyone looked annoyed that he was late, again, Conner nodded his head in La’gaan’s direction.

“Is he complaining about being benched?” Bart wondered, leaning his head to the side to get a better look at the injured Team member.

“No, about getting Dick involved.” Roy told him. Bart nodded, but a strange expression came upon his face.

“What?” Artemis asked with a suspicious tone.

“I didn’t say anything.” Bart responded, looking a little scared which told the female archer exactly what he was thinking. Gar, Jaime and Bart were no where near as bad as La’gaan, but it was clear that they still had mixed feelings about Nightwing and Conner wasn’t the only one losing his patience.

“Do we have to go over this again?” Artemis questioned loudly so that everyone in the vicinity could hear her, “We are sorry we didn’t tell you guys what was going on, and yes, maybe Dick should have told you guys everything, but he thought it was best, we all did, if all of you didn’t know. It’s over and done, fuming about it for the rest of your lives isn’t going to change anything.”

Bart and Jaime backed away in fear from the blonde archer, but La’gaan actually stood up and looked as though he was about to argue with her, but before he could open his mouth, they heard the distant sound of the zeta-tubes.

_Recognized: Robin B20, Batgirl B16, Nightwing B01._


	7. Price You Pay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is taken from the song Fight For You by Hidden Citizens ft Alaina Cross

Dick followed Barbara and Tim out of the zeta tubes into the Watchtower. The place looked exactly the same as he remembered it. It hadn’t changed at all and filled with a sense of nostalgia. He remembered the first time Batman had ever brought him up here. However, he was also filled with a sense of uneasiness, or more like nervousness. Now that he was really here, he was dreading, fearing how his Team, his friends, were going to react to his presence.

“We’re back.” Tim announced as they walked away from the zeta tubes. Less than two seconds later, there was a blur and Wally appeared in front of them.

“Dick.” Wally said with a relieved smile, the sound of running footsteps of the others almost drowning out his voice. After days of fearing the worst, his best friend, his brother, was alive and safe and standing in front of him. Before he could say anything else though, Bart, M’gann, Conner, Roy, Gar, Jaime, Artemis, Cassie, Kaldur, and La’gaan arrived.

“Hey guys.” Dick greeted the entire group.

“Are you okay?” Roy asked, looking him over closely. His friend, practically his younger brother, seemed to be thinner and paler, and there were dark smudges under his eyes. However, he was still clean shaven and his hair hadn’t grown out too much, so he was somewhat taking care of himself. He supposed that was something.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry if I worried you.” Dick apologized, seeing the worried yet relieved expressions on several of his friends’ faces. A small scoff broke through the silence and the dark-haired young man turned to see that it had come from La’gaan, who was glaring at him with angry eyes.

His attention was pulled towards Kaldur when walked up to him, held out his hand and said, “Welcome come back Dick.”

“Thanks, it’s nice to be back.” Dick replied, taking the Atlantean’s hand and giving it a quick shake. However, as he glanced back at the others, he immediately tensed up at the mixed expressions he was given. This was going to be a long and awkward visit.

 **YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Less than an hour later, Dick stood with Barbara, Wally, Roy, Artemis, Conner, M’gann, Gar, Kaldur, Cassie, La’gaan, Bart, and Jamie in front of Tim and the large screen which showed the places that Deathstroke had been during his attack in San Francisco and at the Hall of Justice while the current Robin filled him in on everything that had happened.

“So he showed up in these two spots, but you haven’t been able to track where he went from there?” Dick said after Kaldur and Tim filled him in on everything that happened and what they all knew.

“Nope. He’s good.” Tim commented with a frustrated and disappointed tone. He had always considered himself to be a good detective, he figured out who Batman was after all, but not being able to track down Slade Wilson made him feel, incompetent.

“Yeah, I know.” Dick responded quietly. Tim furrowed his brows when the first Robin said that. He then glanced over at the others and found pained, worried, and haunted expressions on the faces of Kaldur, Wally, Artemis, Roy, Barbara, Conner, and M’gann.

“That’s why we need you.” Tim told him, turning his attention back to Dick.

"We don't need you, but Kaldur said we had to." La'gaan chimed in, causing Dick to immediately tense up once again. He stayed quiet though, knowing he deserved it. Because of his plan to keep everything secret from everyone, La’gaan was kidnapped and injured by the Reach. Apparently, Kaldur thought differently.

"La'gaan, that's enough." Kaldur warned him, shooting him a glare. La’gaan didn’t look happy, but he did shut up.

“You can find him, right?” Cassie brought the attention back to the matter at hand, hoping to ease the tension.

“I’ll do my best.” Dick replied with a nod. After all, he couldn’t guarantee that he would find the man and he wasn’t going to tell them he could.

“Great, I’ll go pull up all the info I managed to get for you.” Tim said then walked away from the group, heading towards the computer room.

Dick looked over at the others still with him. He didn’t really know what to say now, and it appeared that they didn’t either. A part of him wanted to apologize again, to make sure that they knew that he truly felt bad for how he handled the invasion, but he had a feeling that would just start an argument, especially since La’gaan was still there. He waited for someone else to say something, however they didn’t. He probably should have just followed Tim.

Before he could figure out what to say, Wally said, “We should get back to training. We want to be on the top of our game for when we find him.”

The others nodded, though Artemis and Kaldur looked a little annoyed. Soon, Dick was left alone with Kaldur who came up to him and started to apologize, “I’m sorry about them Dick, Artemis and I tried,”

“It’s fine Kaldur.” Dick cut him off, “To be honest, that was actually better than what I was expecting. Don’t worry about it.”

Kaldur sighed and nodded, knowing that the former Team leader was right. Dick then put his hand on the other man’s shoulder and said, “You should go be with them, and I should get to work.”

“If you need anything, just let me know.” Kaldur told him.

“Thanks, I will.” Dick agreed and watched as he headed after the others. Dick then leaned against the wall and stared up at the ceiling.

After leaving the team seven months ago, he had plenty of time to imagine what would happen if they had to work together again. He had hoped it would be better, that the time apart had caused the anger to die down, but it didn’t seem like it. Sure, most of them seemed relieved to see him, but there was an awkwardness between them due to the distance and how they left things. He wondered if they would ever be able to fix that. He really hoped they could. These were people he grew up with, people he considered his best friends, his brothers.

"There you are. I've got all the info pulled up on the League's computer if you're," Dick turned his head to the side when he heard Tim's voice.

As he looked at him, he saw a concerned expression spread across the teenager's face before he asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine. Just a little tired." Dick answered as he pushed himself away from the wall, "Lead the way."

A skeptical look came upon Tim’s face, but ultimately he shrugged it off and led him towards the computer room.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Wally quickly got bored of watching members of the Team fighting on the mats and wanted to be alone to think. So he quietly made his way out of the training room and found himself standing in front of one of the many windows, looking down at planet earth below. He was glad that Dick was okay, beyond glad, but now that old anger at him for pulling them back into the superhero life and putting Artemis in danger was coming back, mixing with guilt for how he had been ignoring his best friend after he woke up in the Watchtower infirmary. Though it was seven months ago and he was injured, he still remembered the last day he saw Dick as though it had just happened.

_He woke up to a dull, full-body, ache. He wasn’t sure if he had the strength to open his eyes, or make any movement at all. If he could’ve, he would’ve gone straight back to sleep but he was too hungry. He tried to remember what had happened, but all he could recall was snow, cold, running, and being hit by lightning or something like that. As his stomach threatened to grumble, getting annoyed that he didn’t give it food, he forced his eyes open and found Artemis sitting on the foot his bed._

_"Artemis?" The archer got up from her spot at the foot of his bed and came over to him._

_"Hey Wally. I'm right here." His eyes were only half-way open and he looked exhausted, but he forced himself to stay awake._

_"Did I ever tell you how hot you are in that outfit?" Wally asked her with smile, causing her to chuckle._

_"If you think that compliments are going to change the fact that I'm furious with you for almost getting yourself killed, you'd be wrong." Artemis told him with a smirk. She then dropped it as her face turned serious and she asked, “How are you feeling?”_

_“Okay, I think.” He answered. While painkillers didn’t really work on him, unless they were specially made for speedsters, his healing was super fast. He wasn’t sure how badly injured he was, but he had no doubt he’d be up on his feet in no time._

_“Wally.” Another voice pulled the two’s attention towards the doorway where Dick stood, still in his Nightwing outfit, sans mask. A relieved expression was on the young man’s face as he entered the room, “You’re awake.”_

_“I’ll let you two talk. I’ll be back.” Artemis told the two young men before she got off the bed and left them alone._

_For a minute, the room was silent, then Dick walked over to him and unknowingly repeated Artemis’s earlier question, “How are you feeling?”_

_“I’m okay.” Wally replied, looking down at his hands, unable to meet Dick’s eyes._

_“Wally, listen,” Dick started, turning his gaze to the floor, “I’m sorry about how I handled things. I shouldn’t have hidden everything from the Team, not for that long as least. I should have done better to make sure Kaldur and Artemis were safe while undercover, and I should have come up with a better plan against the Light and the Reach.”_

_“Wally?” Dick said uncertainly and fearfully when the speedster didn’t say anything._

_“I, I need some time Dick, to process everything.” Wally finally responded, looking down at his hands instead of his best friend’s face._

_“Okay, I get that. I’ll see you later then, I guess.” Dick responded, then waited another few seconds for Wally to say something else. When he didn’t, he simply turned around and walked out of the room. Little did Wally know, that that would be the last time he saw his best friend for seven months._

“Wally?” The redhead looked over his shoulder to see his girlfriend coming up behind him, “Are you okay?”

“I’m just, thinking about when I woke up, after the incident at the North Pole.” Wally answered, giving her a smile as she grabbed his hand.

“More specifically, about what happened with Dick.” Artemis realized. Ever since they had been told that Dick had gone off the grid three months ago, her boyfriend was constantly thinking about the last time he saw his best friend. She tried to talk to him about it, but he never opened up about what he actually was thinking.

“Yeah.” He confirmed, looking back out the window.

Putting her free hand on his shoulder, Artemis said, “Wally, you need to talk to him. He’s your best friend.”

“I know,” Wally stated harshly, looking over at her. He then took a deep breath to calm himself before he added with a quieter voice, “I just don’t know what to say or what to do.”

Artemis took her hand out of his, wrapped her arms around him and said, “You better figure it out before we find Deathstroke, because I have a feeling that once we do, Dick’s not going to be sticking around unless we give him a reason to.”

Without another word, the blonde walked away, leaving Wally to think over her words. She was right, he knew that. However, that didn’t mean he knew what to do to fix his relationship with Dick.


	8. The Dark Returns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title was taken from the song I See Fire by Ed Sheeran. I hope you all like

So much had happened over the last two weeks with trying to track down Deathstroke, then trying to track down Dick that Tim didn’t really have time to think about how he felt about, everything. Now that Dick was back and taking the reins on the search for the mercenary, Tim had nothing but time to think. It was beginning to drive him nuts. He wished he had something to do to distract him from his thoughts.

When Dick finally explained everything about Kaldur being undercover and Artemis still being alive, Tim didn’t really know how to react. He felt like an idiot for not realizing what was going on. It was all so obvious in hindsight, he didn’t know how he could’ve missed all the signs. It was downright humiliating, especially when the other members of the Team who were also in the dark asked him and Barbara if they knew about Nightwing’s plan. At least Barbara hadn’t figured it out either. If she had, then he would’ve felt like the biggest idiot on the planet, along with feeling betrayed.

When he first became Robin, he was so nervous. The pressure of living up to the standards set by Dick, the expectations Bruce had, honouring Jason’s memory and life by taking up the role died in weighed heavily on his shoulders. At first, Dick didn’t seem to want anything to do with him as he was still grieving the death of his little brother. But soon, he was taking him under his wing and showing him the ropes of being Batman’s partner. Even though he wasn’t Bruce’s ward or adopted son, Dick had become his big brother and the fact that he didn’t tell him the truth, didn’t trust him, hurt. Over the last several months, he finally got his heart to realize that what Dick did wasn’t personal, but now that old hurt was mixing with the guilt he felt for how he reacted, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

"So, have you found anything?" Tim asked as he entered the computer room where Dick was working. Dick had only been back for a day, but he was desperate for answers.

Dick turned around and said, "No. I thought he was good at hiding before, but he’s definitely stepped up his game.”

“That means you haven't found anything." Tim replied with an annoyed tone that Dick quickly picked up on.

"I've found where they had been, specifically Deathstroke, which is who we're looking for, but no sign yet of where he's going next." Dick clarified.

"So, we know nothing." Tim repeated his earlier statement. When he saw Dick tense up and try to calm down without reacting, he said, “Sorry, I’m just, frustrated at how long this is taking. I hate not being able to do anything.”

“Yeah, I do too. But don’t worry, we’ll find him and deal with him.” Dick assured him, giving him a smile. Turning back to the screen, he added quietly, “Hopefully, for good.”

Tim’s brows furrowed in thought. Ever since they learned that it was Deathstroke who was after them and they first suggested that they get Dick’s help, Tim had noticed some strange looks on Wally’s, Artemis’s, Roy’s, Conner’s, Kaldur’s, Barbara’s and M’gann’s faces. At first, he thought it was just because their mixed feelings towards Dick, but he soon started to think it was more than just that. When he and Barbara found the missing team member and told him, he noticed that Dick also had a strange reaction to the mention of Deathstroke. There was something else going on, something he didn’t know about.

“Well, if you find anything or need anything, let us know.” Tim told him, deciding to let him get back to work.

“I will.” Dick responded, still focused on the computer as Tim walked out of the room.

The third Robin wasn’t sure what to do now. He was hoping something that Dick would have something more, or at least, have something for him to do, but nothing. He could go to the training room and get some more practice in, but he didn’t really feel like it. He could go see what Cassie was doing and hang out with her. They hadn’t been able to spend much time together since they started searching for Deathstroke.

Having made up his mind, he started making his way down the halls to the living room in search of Wonder Girl, but came across Kaldur who was heading in the opposite direction. When he saw him, he said, “Hello Tim.”

“Hi Kaldur.” Tim greeted with a nod. He stopped though when he realized that maybe, just maybe, he could get some answers about Deathstroke. Turning around to see the older heroes back, he called out, “Hey Kaldur?”

Aqualad turned around to face him and said, “Yes.”

“What happened between Dick and Slade Wilson?” Tim asked. Kaldur immediately tensed while his face became guarded.

“What makes you think that anything happened?” Kaldur questioned, keeping his voice passive and unemotional.

“The way Roy, Wally, Artemis, M’gann, Conner, Barbara and you reacted with getting Dick’s help was first suggested. The way Barbara was acting when we were looking for Slade. The way Dick seems to be, making this a personal mission of his, or something.” Tim answered, crossing his arms across his chest, making it clear that he knew something was up despite what Kaldur said.

Kaldur sighed, lowered his head, then replied, “About a year after the Light infiltrated the Watchtower, Deathstroke appeared and we had to deal with him. It, did not end well. Let us leave it at that.”

Tim gave him a curious look and wanted to ask more, but before he could say anything, the sound of footsteps came from behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Dick coming around the corner and when he saw them, he said, “I think I found something.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

About ten minutes later, Dick had the entire team gathered in the computer room, making it extremely crowded. It was a little uncomfortable, but he ignored it and focused on telling them what he realized and his theory.

“In both places Deathstroke attacked, the Justice League and the Team were both there, and they were highly publicized events.” Dick pointed out even though everyone knew that already.

“Yeah, so?” Conner asked. As Dick looked over at them, he felt very uneasy about what he was about to tell them. He had no real proof about the theory his realization created, but deep down in his gut, he knew he was right.

“So it stands to reason that he will attack in places like that again.” Dick explained, “In about two hours, there is a press conference in front of the Hall of Justice about the fire. Wonder Woman will be speaking. If Deathstroke is going to reappear anywhere, it’s going to be there.”

“That’s the best you got? A possible location he might show up at?” La’gaan said with an unimpressed tone that matched his equally unimpressed tone.

“La’gaan, you are benched because of your injuries and your disregard for orders. There is no need for you to be here. So you can leave.” Kaldur told him. La’gaan turned to look at him, a shocked and angry expression on his face. Kaldur however didn’t care and when La’gaan didn’t move, he made it an order, “Right now.”

The younger Atlantean glared at the leader but turned and stormed out of the room. Once he was gone, Kaldur looked back over at Dick and asked, “Dick, you’re sure that Deathstroke will show up?”

“I know I don’t have much proof, but yes, I am.” Dick answered as confidently as he possible could.

“Alright, let’s go.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Only a few hours later, Dick stood on top of one of the tallest buildings near the Hall of Justice which gave him a clear view of what was going on below. Wonder Woman hadn’t arrived yet but there was already a large crowd in front of the damaged building. Dressed in his Nightwing suit, he scanned the streets and surrounding houses and buildings in all directions for any sign of Deathstroke. It felt a little weird as he hadn’t worn his suit since he left Bludhaven and he had lost weight since then so it didn’t fit as well as it did before. It didn’t matter that much though. It would work until they caught Deathstroke and when they did, he could go back to hunting down the Court without any distractions or fears of his friends ending up in the crossfire.

_“You guys see anything?”_ Dick questioned the others through the telepathic link M’gann established when they first arrived while he continued looking for the mercenary.

_“No, not yet.”_ Barbara’s voice sounded in his head.

_“You sure that Deathstroke is going to show up?”_ Bart then asked, sounding very skeptical. Dick was about to respond when he spotted the assassin in question standing in the opening of an alley across the street from the building he was standing on, staring at the crowd.

_“Yup, because I see him.”_ Dick told the others, keeping his eyes on the figure, not wanting to lose him.

_“Where?”_ Kaldur responded instantly.

_“Just across the street from me.”_ Dick answered, then saw Deathstroke looking straight at him _, “And he knows he’s been spotted.”_

_“Wait for us to get there.”_ Roy told him, knowing that Dick was more than likely to go after the man who tormented him when he was younger.

The sound of an explosion drew everyone’s attention back towards the Hall of Justice. The building behind it was on fire and collapsing. A bomb had gone off and now the crowd that was there to see Wonder Woman was going crazy. Dick had no doubt in his mind that it was all set up by Deathstroke. When he looked back to where he saw Deathstroke, he saw him running away from the scene.

_“Can’t, he’s on the move, and it looks like you guys got your hands full.”_ Dick informed the others as he shot out his grappling hook and flew after the mercenary.

_“Nightwing!”_ Kaldur yelled in his head but Dick ignored it. He couldn’t let Deathstroke get away, not when he had a chance to stop him.

Dick chased him through the streets and alleys, trying not to lose sight of him. He normally didn’t have a hard time catching up to people on patrols, but Deathstroke was stronger and faster than any average person due to the experiments done on him when he was in the army. Despite his age, Slade Wilson had no problem staying ahead of Dick Grayson. However, in his attempt to get away, he went down an alley that was blocked off allowing Nightwing to catch up to him.

“Stop Deathstroke.” Dick ordered as he followed the criminal into the alley. Deathstroke stopped and turned around to face him.

“Unfortunately, Robin, I can’t yet.” Deathstroke replied with a smooth voice that caused a shudder to run down Dick’s spine.

“Haven’t been Robin for a while, Slade.” Dick used the man’s real name, hoping to throw him off just a little. When the older man didn’t respond, he asked, “What were you hired for? Taking down my Team?”

“From what I’ve heard, they haven’t been ‘your’ team in a while, Grayson.” Slade responded, putting a hand on his hip. Doing his best to not let Slade’s words get to him, he gripped his escrima sticks tightly in his hands and continued to question him on what exactly he was doing.

“But that’s what you were hired to do?” Slade pulled out his sword, getting ready to fight before he answered, “Nope.”

Before Dick could ask any more questions, Slade charged with his sword raised and ready to be used. He quickly blocked the weapon from hitting his shoulder with one of his own weapons and used his strength to shove the man away from him while pushing the other escrima stick to Deathstroke’s side, the electricity from it crackling. It worked, but only slightly. Slade was stronger than him and easily sidestepped away from the stick and swung his sword at him again. Dick instinctively ducked and twirled away before a metal gloved fist caught him in his jaw, causing him to lose his balance and fall down onto one knee.

When he raised his head, he noticed something strange sticking out of Deathstroke’s boot. It looked like a feather, a white feather. Why on earth did he have that? Dick raised his head even more to look at Slade’s face, or rather, his mask, and saw him holding something in his hand. As he dropped it, smoke filled the alley as Deathstroke said, “Until next time Grayson.”

“Slade!” Dick yelled as he ran into the smoke, but it was no use. The man was gone. However, the feather that he had in his boot was on the ground. He walked over to it, leaned down and picked it up. It was pure white and while he wasn’t sure what kind of bird it came from, it did look familiar. Holding it up to get a better look at it, he muttered under his breath, “Slade, what are you up to?”


	9. What We've Become

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is taken from a line from the song Happier by Marshmellow. I hope you all like this chapter!

If there was one feeling that Roy Harper, the clone, was beyond familiar with besides anger, was guilt. He felt guilt for being a mole for the Light, felt guilt for replacing the real Roy Harper, felt guilt for how long it took to find him, guilt for missing so much of his friends’ and family’s lives over the last five years, and guilt for how he treated Dick after the invasion.

He didn’t know what was all going on until he heard about Black Beetle’s plan to destroy the planet and Wally was hurt. He was infuriated with Dick for what he did. Lying to everyone, playing with everyone’s emotions, putting Kaldur and Artemis in danger and Wally almost dying. And when he heard that he had kicked the original Roy off the Team, he was even more furious. That was why he didn’t say anything to Dick when he did explain everything and apologized for it before quitting the Team.

When Artemis and Kaldur realized how everyone was still mad at Dick, they quickly defended him and tried to explain the situation more. After hearing how the original Roy was acting on missions, he understood why Dick took him off the Team. He also started to understand Nightwing’s thought process. He was a clone and a mole and no one saw it coming. With an important mission like this, secrecy was important. Besides, he wasn’t even there, wasn’t involved with what happened, wasn’t apart of the Team. Did he really have a right to be angry with Dick about what he did? And while the younger hero was extremely smart, there was no way he could’ve seen what the Black Beetle’s endgame was, or that Wally would get hurt. As Roy started realizing all of this, the anger melted away and was replaced by guilt. He should’ve been there for him. Dick was basically his little brother and he wasn’t there to help him.

However, he didn’t reach out to Dick. Roy didn’t really know what to say to him, still didn’t. After barely talking to him for years, having quit the Team about two years after the Light infiltrated the Watchtower, it was pretty easy to not talk to him. Dick had only texted him once after Nightwing quit the Team and left, unlike Barbara, Wally, Tim and Kaldur. He apparently texted them the most but only Kaldur replied. He didn’t fully realize just how much Dick was shunned or exiled or whatever. He was such a social person, he had so many friends and family. The fact that he actually spent the last seven months without them, the last three months with barely any human contact was almost heartbreaking.

After the bomb went off near the Hall of Justice and Deathstroke once again disappeared, Nightwing joined them in helping the civilians get out of danger and the firefighters with putting the fires that the bomb started out. Wonder Woman showed up only five minutes after the bomb went off and also joined them in helping out. It took a few hours but luckily the explosive was very small and the building that it was in was empty as it was under construction there were no casualties. A few people were injured but not critically. It could’ve been a lot worse.

About an hour after they got back to the Watchtower, Roy made his way to the computer room where Dick was. Ever since he arrived, he was working non-stop on finding Deathstroke, which didn’t surprise the Red Arrow. When Slade gets involved, Dick seemed to get tunnel vision, he had ever since they first ran into the assassin. He knew that Dick wouldn’t rest until they caught him so the computer room was where he’d be.

When he entered the room though, he didn’t find Dick in front of the screen like he expected. Instead, he was standing off to the side in front of a table that mostly empty except for a microscope that the archer was sure didn’t belong in this room. Looking closer, he realized that Dick was looking at a feather, which confused him. What was so special about a feather?

“What are you doing?” Dick immediately tensed, snapped his head in Roy’s direction before turning around to face him and moved to stand in front of the microscope so the redhead couldn’t see it.

“Nothing, just waiting for something to pop up on the search I’m running.” Dick answered, doing his best to sound bored though Roy didn’t buy it for a minute. There was something in the young man’s blue eyes that told him something was up.

“What’s up with the microscope? And the feather?” Roy asked, taking a step closer to Dick.

“Nothing. I just got bored waiting for the computer program to finish.” Dick replied. Roy could tell that he was trying his hardest to act normal but he was failing miserably. Considering that Dick was normally very good at tricking people into believing what he wanted, Dick was either too tired, drugged, surprised by Roy’s sudden presence, or shocked by whatever he was doing before the older hero came into the room. He was betting it was one of the last two.

“So you decided to examine a random feather?” Roy questioned, making his voice sound amused to get Dick to relax and, hopefully, lower his guard so he could find out what he was actually doing.

“Pretty much yeah.” The dark-haired young man confirmed.

“Find anything interesting?” Roy continued his line of inquiry, taking another few steps closer to him.

“Nope.” Dick said, standing up straighter as Roy approached him.

“Mind if I take a look?” He then asked.

“Trust me Roy. There’s nothing special about it. Just a boring feather. A complete waste of time.

Roy didn’t really know how Dick was going to go about it, but he was pretty sure that it was going to be something like that. He could tell that the minute that Dick stood in front of the microscope. What he didn’t expect was the rage that immediately came over him. After all the trouble that everyone’s secrets have caused, here was Dick keeping more. He should know that more than anyone. And what kind of secret involved a feather? Roy had enough of secrets, especially from his best friend.

“Why don’t you try telling the truth?” Roy said before mumbling under his breath, “for once?”

“What do you mean?” Dick asked, playing dumb.

“You really need me to answer that?” Roy asked, no longer pretending to buy Dick’s act. Realizing that, the younger man seemed to deflate and said, “It’s nothing important Roy. It has something to do with a different case I’m working on.”

“What kind of case?” Roy wondered, calming down now that Dick was finally starting to be honest.

“Just a gang that was causing some trouble in Bludhaven.” Dick answered.

Furrowing his brows in confusion, the clone asked, “Why are you working on that? You haven’t been working in Bludhaven in months.”

“I know, but I figured that if I can figure out the crimes happening there, it will be easier to shut them all down when I go back.”

“Makes sense. Can I help?”

“Thanks for the offer Roy, but I got it under control.” Dick told him, giving the older hero a small but appreciative smile. However, Roy frowned. There was something else going on. His friend wasn’t telling him everything.

Roy stayed in his spot, wondering what exactly he should do. He came looking for Dick to talk about what happened last time they saw each other, wanted to explain and apologize, but now, seeing that Dick wasn’t being with him, he wanted to confront him on it and yet felt that he should leave it alone. He couldn’t believe their relationship had crumbled down to this. They used to be best friends, brothers even, and now they went months without taking and he didn’t know what to say when he wanted to talk. From the looks of it, Dick didn’t know either.

Not wanting to risk starting a fight, Roy said, “Okay, let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will, thanks.” Dick responded, then watched as Roy walked out of the room before turning back to the microscope on the table behind him.

This was a lot harder than he thought it was going to be. Dick knew when he decided to help the Team hunt down Deathstroke that it was gong to be awkward being around them. He was worried that they were going to jump him, start yelling him for how he kept his plan a secret, giving him glare and insults. He was grateful that they hadn’t done that, but at least if they did, he would know how they were feeling. Right now, with the silence, the missed expressions, the short conversations, he had no idea what everyone was thinking or feelings. The only people he was sure about were Kaldur and La’gaan. It looked like Roy wanted to talk about it, which Dick would’ve welcomed if he hadn’t have come in at that moment when he had just discovered something about the feather Deathstroke left behind.

Within seconds after picking it up off the ground in the alley, Dick noticed some small, black markings by the tip. Running his finger over them, he could feel that the marks weren’t written on it, but rather carved into it. Not having any time to examine it there, he put it in his belt and went to help the others. He planned to tell the others about it, but when he saw what the markings were, he couldn’t. He didn’t know what to make of it all, and the others wouldn’t either, especially not the ones who remained unaware of his past with Slade. But the words written there gave him a bad feeling that something else was going on. Until he figured it out, he was keeping his mouth shut on the matter.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Roy walked down the hall towards the Watchtower’s living room. He was disappointed, in himself and in Dick. He should have told his friend what he wanted to say, instead of chickening out, and Dick should have told him what was really going on. He was starting to wonder if he should’ve pushed the issue, he might’ve gotten some answers, but more than likely it would have just ended in a fight with one of them storming out of the room. And if he really did want to fix his friendship with Nightwing, then he couldn’t do that. Fighting would just make it worse.

Entering the room, he saw Wally, Barbara and Tim sitting on the couches talking. They looked up when they heard him come in and Wally asked, “Everything okay Roy?”

“No, not really.” Roy answered, sitting down beside the speedster, “I tried to talk to Dick, but he was doing something and wouldn’t tell me what.”

“Is that really a big deal?” Barbara wondered. There had been many times she would been in the middle of doing something and wouldn’t tell others what it was.

“Normally I’d say no, but there was something weird about the way he was acting. It was almost like I caught him with his hand in the cookie jar or something.” Roy tried to explain, slouching in his seat.

“What was he doing?” Tim asked.

“He was looking at a stupid feather under a microscope.” Roy informed them, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Why?” Wally asked, completely confused as to why Dick would do something like that.

“I don’t know. All he said was that it had something to do with a case he was working on in Bludhaven.” Roy replied.

“But he hasn’t been in Bludhaven for three months.” Barbara said, also getting confused.

Roy gave her a pointed look before he said, “I know, and I pointed that out to him too. But he said that he was trying to keep tabs on the crimes so that when he went back, he’d be able to take the criminals out quickly.”

“Maybe it has to do with the group that was going after him.” Barbara suggested.

“Maybe, but why wouldn’t accept any help?” Tim wondered, looking over at her.

“I don’t know.” Barbara answered, “Maybe he doesn’t think we’d actually help. Or maybe he just wants to do this all on his own.”

“Well, we haven’t been the best of friends to him lately.” Roy reminded them, looking down at the ground.

“You know, two years ago, if someone told me that our friendship with Dick would have deteriorated to this point, I would have laughed in their faces.” Wally told them. At that, everyone in the room turned their gazes to the floor. They had all been so close to each other growing up, but Dick was the one who brought them all together, and to see how distant they had become from him seemed impossible. And yet, it had happened.

The silence the four had fallen into was broken by the sound of Dick’s voice over the intercom, _“Guys, I think I found him.”_


	10. And The World Was Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as you guys probably noticed, I’m not the greatest at writing fight scenes nor do I enjoy it that much, but I want to get better at it. This chapter has more fighting in it, and I just want to say sorry if it’s really bad. Hope you all like this chapter though. Chapter title is the title of the song And The World Was Gone by Snow Ghosts.

Dick never, ever wanted to come back here, and he was sure that that was why Slade picked it as his hiding place. While he doubted that the mercenary actually thought that the hero hated the place so much that he wouldn’t come if that’s where Slade was hiding, but it was definitely enough to try and throw him off his game. He hadn’t even entered the building yet and already he was having a hard time keeping the memories at bay.

Late last night, the search program he was running found a picture of Slade Wilson, taken from a traffic camera in Jump City, near the outskirts, heading in the direction of the abandoned factory he had used as his base years go. The factory where he held Dick hostage back when he was still Robin. Immediately, Dick knew that not only had Deathstroke taken up residence there again, but he got caught on camera on purpose. After all this time of hiding so well to get caught by a simple traffic camera? That was a rookie mistake and Slade was no rookie. There was no way he would’ve done that unless he wanted to be seen, which most likely meant this was most likely a trap.

When Dick called everyone into the computer room and told them what he found, he told them that it was most likely a trap. Everyone agreed that it was, but decided it was worth checking out. They had the place under surveillance for the rest of the night and the following day and made a plan of attack. Now that it was dark, they used the zeta tubes to get to Jump City and approached the building. Nightwing, Tigress, Red Arrow and Wonder Girl went to enter the building from the roof, Batgirl, Superboy and Miss Martian from the second floor, and the rest of the Team entered from the first floor.

_“Are you sure he is here?”_ Dick heard Jaime ask as he and Bart entered the building from the bottom floor behind Wally, Tim, and Kaldur.

 _“Yeah, I’m sure.”_ Dick replied, doing his best to hide his emotions and memories from the others. While M’gann did a good job of making sure that the telepathic link she sets up only allowed them to communicate, but sometimes, emotions could travel through them if they were strong enough and if someone focused enough on another person and he didn’t want that.

 _“Isn’t this where,”_ Wally started, apparently only now recognizing the place.

 _“Yup.”_ Dick answered Wally before he could finish that sentence and then told the others, _“Be on your guard. Deathstroke is very smart, and very good. And odds are, this is probably a trap, so don’t do anything stupid.”_

After hearing the mumbled agreements from the others, Dick continued his path through the old factory. Everything looked exactly the same, except it was far dustier. The lights were on, but it barely helped as not only was there so few of them, the lightbulbs weren’t that bright and cast the entire place in a disturbing red glow. Just like how it was years ago. It was literally something from a horror movie. He pushed the old memories and emotions the place was bringing up back down so he could focus on finding Slade. The sooner they found him, or found that he was gone, the sooner they could leave.

 _“I think I found something.”_ Bart’s voice pulled Dick from his thoughts.

He looked around and spotted the speedster walking towards a door on the first floor. When he reached for the handle, the door burst open by itself and several men wearing ski masks poured out of the room and immediately started attacking the heroes on the first floor. The others on the higher floors rushed down to help before they were completely overrun after a brief moment of confusion. Slade hardly ever worked with other people, especially if he was completing a contract. That, and the fact the surveillance they had on the building never showed anyone else enter the factory lead them to believe that it would just be him there. They weren’t expecting a bunch of masked men ready to attack them.

“Who are these guys?” Wally asked out loud as he zoomed around the room, going behind the masked men and knocking them out from the back of their heads.

“Probably some hired thugs.” Conner answered, pummeling his fist into a man’s head.

Nightwing did his best to ignore the banter of his teammates, wanting to concentrate on taking down the masked men who were attacking them as fast as possible to they could find Slade and get out of here. However, Wally’s question wouldn’t stop running through his head. Why were these people here? They saw no evidence of anyone besides Deathstroke entering the building from the surveillance they had, and Deathstroke didn’t work with people, at least not that often. The fact that they were here was confusing. What was the assassin up to?

It was then, as Nightwing knocked out the man he was fighting with a quick blow to the head, that he saw Deathstroke hiding in the shadows on the far side of the room in the corner.

_“Guys he’s here!”_ Dick yelled in his mind as Deathstroke looked right at him before turning around to head in the opposite direction. Without waiting to see if anyone else saw the man they were looking for or if they heard him, Dick ran after Slade.

Deathstroke didn’t go that far. He just led him through the hallway to the other open room away from the others, a room that Dick quickly recognized as the one that he’d ‘train’ him in. He hated this room.

Once he was in the room, Deathstroke turned around to face him, pulled his sword out of its sheath and said, “Hello Nightwing. I see you got one of the little clues I left you. Did you get the other one as well?”

“Yes, I’m just a little confused by the way you gave it to me.” Nightwing answered, gripping his escrima sticks tightly in his hands.

“You mean you haven’t figured it out yet? That’s surprising. Guess you aren’t as smart as I gave you credit for.” Deathstroke mocked, getting into a fighting position.

Dick stared at him for a few seconds, then attacked. Slade blocked him easily, as he always did, but Nightwing expected that and swung at his legs. The mercenary however jumped over and swung his sword towards the younger man’s neck. Dick ducked and threw a hit to the other man’s side, but Slade grabbed the stick with his free hand.

“Why don’t you just tell me?” Dick asked, standing still in the position he was in.

“Because this is so much more fun.” Slade replied, before pushing Dick away with all of his might. Dick stumbled back until he hit the wall, took a moment to collect himself and charged the criminal again, who sidestepped out of the way.

“You’re angry. That’s good, as long as you use it right.” Slade told him, waiting patiently for Dick’s next move.

“Tell me why you attacked my Team.” Dick demanded, swinging out his escrima stick towards Deathstroke’s neck, only for it to hit the edge of the man’s blade.

“You really haven’t figured it out?” Deathstroke sounded surprised that the hero hadn’t put the pieces together yet.

“Were you seriously that bored you decided to attack them just to fight with me?” Nightwing asked as he continued his attack on the assassin, who blocked his every more which was starting to frustrate and confuse him. It was harder to take someone down in a fight when they were on the defense and it confirmed to Dick that there was definitely something more going on than Slade just deciding to come after him again.

“Oh no. I don’t waste this much money out of boredom.” Slade replied, sliding out of the way of one of the blows Dick threw at him.

“Then why?” Dick questioned, trying to kick Slade’s legs while still throwing out blow after blow with his weapons, “You were hired, weren’t you?”

“There’s those detective skills.” Deathstroke said, moving out of the way of Dick’s legs, though he did try to sweep them under Dick’s own legs, who, with the grace of an acrobat twirled out of the way.

“You attacked the Team, but you left a feather with my name on it.” Dick said, trying to put the pieces together while at the same time, baiting the older man to give away more info.

“Had to get you out of hiding somehow. And just like last time, you came running when your friends were in trouble.” Slade responded, either unaware of what he just revealed or just not caring. He did this to get him out of hiding, whoever hired him was after him and was aware he was hiding. There was only one group that he could think of that knew Nightwing went into hiding.

“Who hired you?” Dick then asked, though he was almost certain he knew the answer. Hired to get him out of hiding, a white feather, the words written in it.

“You know who.” Slade told him, “The real question is, how far are you going to let me go before you make the smart choice.”

Before Dick really had a chance to process what he said, Slade swung his sword at him again, aiming to slice his chest. The acrobat dodged it, taking several steps back so he was out of the sword’s reach, allowing Slade to pull something from his belt. It looked like a small remote, one that the assassin was clearly threatening to use. He waited until Dick was looking at him again before he pressed a button and the sound of an explosion rang through the building, coming from the other room where his team was.

Dick ran out of the room, down the hallway to where his friends were. When he got there, he saw that part of one of the walls was destroyed, pieces of on the ground, same with the machinery near it. Underneath the debris, were the other heroes, lying unconscious and probably injured. And not only were they knocked out, but the remaining thugs that Slade had probably hired to distract them were also on the ground unconscious. The sound of heavy footsteps had Dick turning around to see Slade. He gave him a furious glare, but tensed when he saw that he was still holding the remote, thumb over the button.

“That was only the first blast. The second one will be a lot worse. But I don’t have to use it.” Deathstroke told him. He waited a few seconds before he asked, “So what’s it going to be Nightwing?”

Dick stared at the unconscious figures of his friends, then turned to Deathstroke as he asked, “You’ll leave them alone?”

“I came for you. I just used them to find you. How much I use them is up to you.” Deathstroke told him. Dick glanced back at the young heroes, then dropped his escrima sticks, got down on his knees and lifted his hands up in the air by his head. Without a word, Deathstroke sheathed his sword and walked towards him, keeping a tight grip on the remote which controlled the several explosives he had set up throughout the whole building.

“Smart choice.” The assassin said, pulling a pair of handcuffs out of his belt. He quickly closed the one manacle over one of Dick’s wrists, brought it down behind his back, then grabbed his other wrist and pulled it down as well then closed the other manacle on that wrist, effectively restraining him. Dick didn’t fight him, didn’t even move though it took every bit of control he had to just let it happen. He kept his eyes on the unconscious forms of his friends to help keep himself in place. Then, he felt the stab of a needle into his neck. Within seconds, his vision blurred before completely turning black.

Deathstroke waited until he saw his captive tip to the side before he grabbed him to keep him from falling. Checking the young man’s eyes and pulse to make sure he was indeed unconscious, he heaved him over his shoulder and started to make his way out of the factory while his hostage.

What he was unaware of, was a redhead dressed in a yellow costume slowly coming to and seeing him leave with him. Wally reached out weakly, though he knew he couldn’t reach him. Whispering his friend’s name, he passed out once again, unable to do anything to save him.


	11. Devils All Around Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from the song Seven Devils by Florence and the Machine. Hope you guys like this chapter!

It was a persistent shaking that forced Wally to wake up. He didn’t really want to, his head was killing him, but the shaking wouldn’t stop and seemed to be making it worse. He lifted his arm in a weak and clumsy attempt to push away whoever or whatever was shaking him, but a hand grabbed it and pushed it back down. Wally tried to struggle, but then he heard a familiar voice saying something.

“Come on Kid. Wake up.” Wally slowly opened his eyes and saw the somewhat blurry form of the Flash leaning over him.

“U’cle Ba,” Wally said, slurring his words a little which confused him. How long was he out? And how badly was he hurt that he was still feeling the effects of getting smacked in the head despite his speed healing?

“Names Kid. Still out in the field.” Barry reminded him, though looked relieved to see him awake.

“You’re back?” Wally said, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

“Yeah, I’m back. So is a lot of the League. Are you okay?” Barry asked, looking him over carefully.

“I think so.” Wally replied, giving his uncle a reassuring smile.

“What happened?” The younger speedster turned his head to see Superman, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman and Batman helping their protegees out of the rubble, and Batman looking at Kaldur for answers.

“I am uncertain. We had found evidence that Deathstroke was here, but when we arrived, he, and several masked thugs attacked us. A bomb went off and we were all knocked out.” Kaldur explained everything he knew.

“He took Nightwing.” Wally said as he stood up, getting everyone’s attention, “I woke up, briefly, and saw Deathstroke leave, with Nightwing.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

As Dick finally came to, the first thing he noticed was the tingling in his shoulders and his left arm, telling him that he was lying on it. He tried to move, but quickly realized that he couldn't, only now feeling the handcuffs around his wrists, keeping them tightly behind his back.

"Good, you're awake." Dick turned his head to see Deathstroke walking towards him, almost like a predator going in for the kill.

"I was beginning to think you aren't as hard-headed as you appear." The villain continued as Dick struggled to push himself up so that he was sitting. It was a little difficult, but having been kidnapped several times, he knew how to do it.

Once he was upright, he stared down at his captor with a half grin and said, "What can I say? Have to have a hard head in order to deal with you."

Instead of getting angry, Dick sensed Deathstroke was actually smiling under his mask. The mercenary took another few steps closer while he said, "Good to see you continue to try to be humorous in this line of work."

"'Try to be funny'? You hurt me Slade. Truly." Dick replied, voice filled with mock-pain.

“If that actually hurts you, you most definitely will not last long with the Court.” Deathstroke responded light-heartedly, though it made Dick snap his mouth shut. Despite knowing exactly why Slade Wilson had hunted him down, he had been hoping that he was wrong.

“I mean, when I got offered the contract from the mysterious Court of Owls wanting you, knowing both your vigilante identity and real identity, I got a little curious. And imagine my surprise when they told me about your history with them.” Deathstroke’s voice drew Dick’s attention back to him, “I always knew you had potential, that’s why I offered to make you my apprentice. But to actually be the descendant of assassins, I never saw that coming.”

“It doesn’t matter Slade, because just like I said no to your ‘offer’, I will be saying no to them too.” Dick told him with a hard voice, losing the joking tone.

For a few seconds, the assassin and the hero glared at each other before a new voice broke the silence, “Don’t be too sure about that yet Richard. You haven’t seen all we have to offer you yet.”

Dick’s gaze immediately went to the two figures that had appeared behind Slade. One was dressed in black armour with gold trim, golden gauntlet on one hand, mask shaped like an owl head. It was a Talon. The man beside him was dressed in an expensive gray suit and had the white owl mask covering his face. He didn’t even notice that there was a door behind his captor much less notice that the two members of the Court had come in.

“I assume that you removed all the trackers he had on him?” The man with the white mask asked, coming to stand beside Deathstroke.

“Of course. It’s not the first time I captured this particular bird after all.” Deathstroke answered.

“And his weapons and tools?” The owl man questioned, still staring at Dick.

“Over there on the table.” Deathstroke replied, gesturing to the table against the wall behind them.

Both the Talon and Owl looked at the table, but only the Talon walked over to it. He then grabbed something off of it, turned around and walked towards Dick. When he got closer, Nightwing realized that he was holding one of his escrima sticks. Without saying a word, the Talon came to stand right in front of him, pointed the weapon under Dick’s chin and forced his head up. It was only then that the Owl came to stand beside the Talon and tilted his head to the side, as though he was examining him.

Dick tried move his head away, but the Owl grabbed his hair while the Talon kept Dick's escrima stick under his chin, forcing his head to remain still. The Owl gently pulled off the mask and Dick forced himself to glare at them instead of showing his fear. Though he couldn't see the leader's face, he had the sneaking suspicion that he was smiling.

"Such lovely blues eyes. You got them from your mother, didn't you?"

Dick's glare intensified and if he could, he would've spat at the man, but with the two of them holding his head and escrima stick under his jaw, he couldn't. The Owl-masked man didn't seem to care though. He simply let go of his hair and said, "It's a shame that by the time we're done with you, they'll be gone."

As the words fully registered in Dick's head, the man walked away from him and the Talon lowered the weapon from under his chin. However, the Court's assassin remained beside him, watching him closely, making sure he didn't do anything. He wasn't sure what the Talon thought he was going to do, it's not like he could really move with both his hands and feet tied, his weapons gone and what he was sure was a mild concussion at the very least, but he didn't care that much. His attention was on the Owl walking towards Deathstroke.

"Thank you, Deathstroke, for returning our Gray Son to us." The Owl said as he came to stand in front of the mercenary.

"Your thanks is appreciated, but it doesn't pay the bills." Deathstroke replied, sounding a mix between being bored with this whole exchanged and threatening bodily harm if he didn't get his money.

"Ah yes, of course." The Owl said pulling out his phone, "$150,000."

"$200,000." Deathstroke corrected.

"150 was the agreed upon price, was it not?" The Owl asked, apparently taken aback by Deathstroke's words.

"Well, it took more, expensive equipment and work distracting the other heroes and getting your, Gray Son, out of hiding. So the price has gone up." The one-eyed man explained.

“Alright, $200,000 it is.” The Owl agreed after a moment of thought. He started typing on it and then there was beep coming from Deathstroke’s arm. He lifted it up to look at the small screen on his arm. Seeing that the transfer had gone through, he smirked.

“Talon?” Before Dick could figure out what else was going on, the Talon jammed the end of his escrima stick into his neck and let it electrify him. Instantly, everything turned black, He didn’t even feel himself fall back to the ground.

Deathstroke watched as Nightwing fell to the side in silence, a twinge of guilt starting to seed in his stomach. He pushed it down and turned his attention back to his employer when he said, “Don’t forget to dispose of this. We don’t want any trails leading to us after all.”

“That was part of the contract, and I always honour my contracts.” Slade responded, not bothering to hide his annoyance at his work being questioned.

“Then, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” The man in the owl mask said, holding out his hand.

“The pleasure is all mine.” Deathstroke told him, taking his hand and giving it a shake. He then stood by and watched the Talon throw Dick’s unconscious body over his shoulder and carried him out with the other man following, putting the escrima stick back on the table as he did so.

Slade waited until they were gone before he looked back at the table where Dick’s weapons and belt and trackers laid. He had work to do.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Though the Watchtower was more crowded than it had been in weeks, it was extremely quiet. Once Batman had been told by both Tim and Kaldur everything that had happened and everything that they had learned while he was gone, he immediately took over the hunt not only for Deathstroke, but for Nightwing. The original members of the Team weren’t that taken aback by the Dark Knight’s actions as they had seen him like that before when his first protegee got into trouble. Tim and Barbara had seen it as well, but Tim never saw it to this extreme. He wondered if it was because Deathstroke was involved. He knew that there was a history there, he just didn’t know what it was. He wasn’t about to ask know though, this wasn’t the time. All focus was on finding the missing hero.

Right now, only Tim and Barbara were in the computer room with Bruce, no, Batman. The man in front of the computer was definitely not the playboy billionaire that the public sees, he was the all business, completely serious to the point of terrifying everyone in the same room as him. The younger heroes did their best to help, but mostly stayed out of the way, scared that of doing anything that would anger the man who called himself the vengeance and the night. They actually probably didn’t even need to be in the room, but they wanted to stay to help out.

“Robin?” Tim looked over his shoulder at Batman when he heard him call out his name. Holding up a white feather, Batman asked, “What’s this?”

“That must be the feather that Red Arrow was talking about.” At Batman’s quizzical expression, Tim explained, “Red Arrow told us that he came to talk to Nightwing, and found him examining

Batman glanced over at him when he spoke, then examined it even closer, running a finger along it. After a few seconds of that, Batman said, “There’s something carved in it.”

Both Barbara’s and Tim’ eyebrows shot up when they heard that. That would explain why Dick was looking at in under a microscope. He must’ve realized that there was something carved in it. And whatever it was, he didn’t want the others to know about it which was probably why he acted so weird when Roy interrupted him.

They remained silent as Batman brought it over to the microscope that his first protegee used earlier, slid it under and looked down at it through the scope. He then suddenly froze and let out a barely audible gasp. Barbara immediately rushed forward to take a look herself while Batman stepped back, almost as though he was in shock. Tim took a step towards his mentor and asked, “What does it say?”

Batman didn’t answer, but Barbara did look over at him, her face extremely pale before she moved out of the way so the younger teenager could take a long for himself. He went towards it and looked through the scope. There, carved in the feather, were two, black, words.

 _Gray Son_.


	12. Owls and Bats

“The thugs that were at the factory confirmed they were hired to hide in the building until you all arrived. Then they were supposed to attack you.” Batman revealed as he entered the main room where not only the Team was waiting, but Superman, Martian Manhunter, Flash, and Wonder Woman.

“So Deathstroke hired them to distract them so he could kidnap Nightwing.” The Flash surmised.

“Most likely, yes.” Batman confirmed though he didn’t really need to. It was all pretty obvious to everyone that that was the case.

“But why did Deathstroke go after Nightwing?” Robin asked, impatient for answers, “He tired to kill us but made a trap to kidnap Nightwing? And what about that feather? It had his civilian name on it.”

That got everyone’s attention. Only those who were in the room with Batman when he looked at the clue Deathstroke left knew what it had said. And besides them, Roy and Wally, no one even knew about the feather, so they were all extremely curious as to what Tim was talking about. With an annoyed expression aimed at his youngest protégé, Batman said, “Technically, it said ‘Gray Son’, not ‘Grayson’.”

“What’s the difference?” Jaime asked, looking a little confused.

“It tells us who hired Deathstroke.” Batman answered, sounding almost worried, and scared. Hardly any of the people in the room had ever heard the infamous Dark Knight sound like that.

“You mean he didn’t go after him because,” Wally stopped, not wanting to bring up what happened between Slade and Dick all those years ago.

“No, he didn’t.” Batman said, also not wanting to think of what his son went through at the hands of the assassin. Then, he took a deep breath and added, “He was hired by Court of Owls.”

For a minute, everyone was silent before Tim spoke up, “The Court of Owls? From that creepy, old rhyme?”

“What rhyme?” Roy wondered. Tim turned to him and was about to answer but Batman beat him to it.

“ _Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you in your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them, or they’ll send the Talon for your head._ ”

“Yeah, that’s creepy.” Cassie agreed with Tim’s description of the rhyme. Tim nodded, then said, “But, they’re not real, are they?”

“Yes they are. I’ve dealt with them before, with Nightwing and… and Jason.” Batman told them, his voice going quiet at the mention of his second Robin, his second son.

“You need to tell us what’s going on Bruce.” Superman said, taking a step to the billionaire. Surprisingly, Batman didn’t glare or get mad at the alien for using his civilian name and telling him what to do. In fact, he didn’t even look at the superhero, didn’t look at anyone. He just stared at the ground for at least a full minute before he apparently made up his mind on what to do.

“The Court of Owls is a secret society in Gotham that’s filled with the city’s powerful, rich and elite. Basically, their goal is to stay in power, keep those that they believe inferior to them below them and to get even more powerful in any way they can while being hidden in the shadows.” Batman informed the group.

Cassie frowned, crossed her arms and wondered, “What century are they living in where they still have that mindset?”

“No matter the century we’re in, there’s always going to be people who think they’re better than everyone else.” Tim replied, knowing full well hot the rich people in Gotham act. He was technically part of that circle after all.

“Okay, but what does this have to do with Dick?” Wally asked, wanting to know more about why this Court was after his best friend than the group’s history.

“A couple of months after Dick became Nightwing, I found out about the Court. They tried to kill me by sending one of their assassins, their Talons, after me. During the fight against them, I learned that the Talon that was trying to kill me was William Cobb. He is Dick’s great-grandfather.” The silence following Batman’s revelation was so great that you could hear a pin drop without superpowers.

“What? Dick’s descended from an assassin?” Roy’s shock and disbelief obvious in his voice. From the expressions on everyone else’s faces, it was clear that they felt the same way. The entire League had known Dick since he was a child, and along with his teammates who have also gotten to know him, couldn’t believe that the light-hearted, happy, truly good and full of light, young man had an assassin for a great-grandfather. It just didn’t make sense.

“And an assassin that is still alive and kicking? He’s got to be over a 100 years old by now.” Superman pointed out.

“The Court gives their Talons a chemical called electrum. Once it’s been in their body long enough, they activate it with other chemicals which makes them stronger, faster, more agile, increases their stamina and speeds up their healing to the point they are pretty much impossible to kill. They also freeze their Talons in cryotubes so they won’t age and can be pulled out whenever the Court wants and needs them.” Batman explained.

“But, why would they go after Dick? They didn’t go after his Dad or grandfather, did they?” Wally asked, trying to remember if Dick had ever mentioned anything about this. He was coming up blank.

“No, they didn’t,” Batman said, “Several of their Talons were recruited at a young age so they could begin training and to give the Court time to brainwash them into being loyal to them and willing to follow whatever order they were given. Several of them were also recruited from the circus.”

“Haly’s Circus was involved with this?” Superman had a hard time processing that piece of information. He knew how much Dick loved the circus, it was his home and to think they were involved in this shocked him and he knew that that had to hurt Dick when he learned that.

“Unfortunately, yes they are. We still don’t know how much they actually know about the Court and what they are really doing though.” Batman replied.

“But why are they going after Dick if they left his other family alone?” Wally asked, still not really getting the answer to his earlier question.

“Because he’s more skilled than they were. They call him the Gray Son. They think he will be their greatest Talon, their greatest assassin.” The Dark Knight answered.

“If they try to start training the people they want as Talons, and the circus was part of it, and they want Dick so badly, why did they wait until now?” Roy wondered, not really sure what the Court was going through all of this trouble now when it would’ve been easier to get him when he was a child.

“They didn’t really get a chance, because before they could, his family was killed and I took him in. Zucco and I, unknowingly, threw a wrench in their plans.” Batman told them, looking down at the ground again, “They couldn’t come after him because not only would I have stopped them, it would’ve drawn too much attention.”

There had been many times Bruce had wondered what he had been thinking when he decided to take Dick in. During these first few weeks after he brought Dick, only 9 years old at the time, to the manor, he completely at a loss as what to do. The little boy was in shock with the loss of his parents and being surrounded by strangers. Angry at the fact that his parents were actually murdered and the killer was still out there, and was nervous and a little afraid of the gigantic house and the people he just met. But eventually, they both found their footing and Bruce was beyond glad that he took the boy in.

However, then he started getting kidnapped for ransom from Bruce Wayne, and almost getting killed as Robin. Bruce again started to think that maybe Dick would have been better off without him, even though he loved the boy so much. But then the boy would give him a smile and say something about how glad he was that Bruce did take him in and the billionaire would let the thoughts fade away. And when they fought the Court of Owls and learned what could have happened to Dick, they were both relieved that Bruce got to him before the Owls did.

“And now that he’s no longer living at the Manor, they figured out he’s Nightwing and has been trained by Batman, they decided to strike.” Tim said. Batman’s only response was a nod of his head.

“That also explains why when they attacked Haly’s Circus, they didn’t do that much damage and didn’t kill anyone. They need the circus running so they can get more Talons.” Barbara realized.

“Why didn’t Dick tell us about any of this?” Wally questioned, upset that all of this had happened to his best friend and he knew nothing about it. He was still feeling guilty for not talking to Dick for seven months and not knowing that someone was hunting him. And now he found out about all of this that happened years ago and not even from Dick himself. Just how much did the young man keep from him? And why wouldn’t he tell him what was going on?

“He didn’t want anyone to know and since we thought we destroyed them, we didn’t think it mattered. The truth about his family and the circus’s involvement basically pulled the rug from under his feet. He didn’t know what to think.” Batman responded.

“But he could’ve told us. He should’ve told us, should’ve trusted us. He’s our friend. We would’ve helped him.” Roy almost shouted, angry that Dick had been keeping secrets from them even back then. After he trusted him and Wally with his secret identity and they did the same, even though Dick already knew their identities, he though there were no more secrets between them. Apparently, he was wrong.

“Roy, you had just quit the Team to look for the original Roy Harper. And Wally, you and Artemis had also just quit, wanting to be civilians full time.” Batman pointed out, causing those three heroes to lower their heads.

Roy remembered how he had become obsessed with the search for the real Speedy to the point that he ignored everyone else. In all honesty, if Dick had called him, wanting to talk about the Court, he probably wouldn’t have picked up. Even the times he did call, Roy only answered half the time and the conversations hardly ever lasted more than ten minutes. And Wally, he remembered how he and Dick argued when he told him that he was going full civilian with Artemis. The hero life was such a big part of Dick and he didn’t understand how Wally could give it. It got to the point that for a while, whenever they did talk or hung out, they didn’t talk about hero stuff, at all. Wally could easily see why Dick wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about the Court.

“He could’ve talked to us.” Barbara reminded her mentor, also a little mad that she didn’t know anything about Dick’s connection to the Owls. She fought with them against the Court and the Talons, and she had been Dick’s friend the longest. The first time she meet him was the night his parents died and he didn’t trust her enough to tell her about any of this?

“I know, but Dick was never good at talking about anything that he was struggling with.” Batman replied.

“I wonder where he got that from.” Wonder Woman said sarcastically, glaring a little at Bruce, who let the jab slide, knowing that she was right.

“So what now?” Tim asked, looking at the Justice League members for orders.

“Nothing. Their base is in Gotham. I’ll find Nightwing and take care of the Court.” Batman answered in his no-nonsense tone.

“No.” Very slowly, the Dark Knight, the one who claimed to be vengeance itself, turned to look at the redheaded speedster who dared to say ‘no’ to him.

“Excuse me?” Batman questioned, not really believing what he had heard. Wallace West had never challenged him before, and that was how he liked it.

“We all know we’ve done a terrible job at showing it, but Dick’s our friend, our teammate and we are going to help you find him.” Wally told him with a serious tone, hoping no one noticed the slight shake in his knees as he stared down the Batman.

“If they’re as strong as you said, you’re going to need all the help you can get.” Superman took the attention off of Kid Flash.

Batman stared at the Kryptonian, then looked at all the other heroes in the room. From the determined expressions on their faces, he knew that they all wanted to help and wouldn’t let him take over and shut them out on this. Deciding that their help would give him a better chance of finding his missing son, he relented and said, “Fine.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

The first thing that Dick realized as he felt himself waking up, was that instead of lying down on his cot, he was sitting upright against a wall with his hands tied behind his back. Slowly, the memories of Deathstroke and the Talon and the man with the Owl mask trickled back in. With a groan, he opened his eyes only to find himself in complete darkness. For a brief second, he wondered where he was but then he heard the sound of a car engine running and had the feeling that he was moving. Concluding that he was in a moving van or something like that, he leaned his head against the wall, intending to go back to sleep, but suddenly the vehicle stopped. Seconds later, the door swung open and against the harsh light, Dick saw the Talon and the Owl-masked man.

As the Talon jumped into the box and made his way towards him, the other man said, “Welcome to the Court of Owls, Gray Son.”


	13. Owl Training

The man with the Owl mask walked in front of Dick and the Talon who had a death grip on the young man led them through a maze of tunnels and up several flights of stairs. He wondered if they were doing this just to confuse him so he wouldn’t be able to figure out the way to escape the place or if the room or cell they were taking him to really was this way. It probably was because if they really wanted to make sure that he didn’t know anything about his surroundings, then they would’ve blindfolded him. Honestly, that was a dumb move in Dick’s opinion. You should never, ever let your hostage know where the exit was. That makes it easier for the hostage to escape. So either the Court was very stupid, overly confident, or there was something else going on that he wasn’t aware of.

After several twists and turns, they finally entered a room that looked like an office. The wall to his left was filled with bookcases while the wall to his right had nothing but a large fireplace that was currently empty and near the wall directly across from him was a desk. The Owl walked towards it as he said, “Take his restraints off. He’s one of us, not a prisoner.”

Dick bit down the urge to argue that. As much as he wanted to deny being one of them and point out that as he was here against his will, arguing wouldn’t help his situation. Plus, his wrists and shoulders were extremely sore. Having the handcuffs off would be nice.

The Talon, reluctantly and roughly, took the handcuffs off, making it clear he didn’t agree with what his boss wanted. He then pulled out a dagger, letting Dick know that if he did anything they didn’t like, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. Besides a glance, Dick didn’t give the assassin any attention. Instead, he looked back at the Owl, rubbing his now free wrists as he did so. By then, the Owl had gotten to his desk, sat down took off his mask, revealing his identity. Lincoln March.

“Surprised to see me?” Lincoln asked when he saw the stunned expression on the young man’s face.

“Well, we were hoping you were dead but we knew there was a chance you could’ve survived.” Dick responded, quickly regaining his composure.

“‘We’ meaning you and my brother I assume?” Lincoln said and Dick stiffened up instinctively. Bruce had told him what Lincoln had told him, but he couldn’t believe it. He still couldn’t believe his own connection to the Court, having Bruce also be connected to them was too crazy. He really hoped Lincoln was wrong about being the billionaire’s sibling.

“Why am I here?” Dick changed the subject.

“Because this is where you truly belong Richard. The Court of Owls is your home. You are the Gray Son of Gotham, keeping the white and the black separate and balanced. That’s your destiny. It’s time for you to take your place.” Lincoln answered with smile.

“That’s never going to happen.” Dick insisted.

Lincoln only smirked and said, “Yes it will. One way or another you will join us.”

Before Dick could respond to that, he heard the door behind him open. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that another Talon had entered the room. Unlike the one still watching him, this one wasn’t wearing his helmet, allowing the 19-year-old to his face, a face he recognized. William Cobb, his great-grandfather.

“Cobb, why don’t you take Richard to where he’ll be staying? He’ll need his rest for training later.” Lincoln ordered. William nodded, reached out, grabbed Dick’s upper arm and started leading him out of the room and down the hall, the other Talon following behind him.

For the first few minutes, they walked in silence while Dick did his best to subtly memorize every turn they took, trying to make a map in his head for when he gets the chance to escape. His attention was pulled to the Talon beside him though when his grip on his arm tightened and he said, “If you were smart, you’d listen to March and take your place among us.”

“If you were smart, you’d know that this is all a big waste of time.” Dick retorted with a scoff, causing his distant relative to tighten even more. Dick couldn’t stop the wince when he felt the claws on the Talon’s gloves cut through his suit and into his skin.

“We will get what we want, one way or another. It’ll be easier on you the sooner you just accept that.” His great-grandfather told him.

“And maybe you will leave the Court and become a hero like me.” Dick said as sarcastically as possible.

They were silent again for another minute as they turned into a dark hallway that was filled with steel doors. He was led to one in the middle of the hall and as the other Talon unlocked the door, Cobb whispered in his ear, “The Court will always be victorious, one way or another. I would think long and had about what side you want to be on.”

With that, his great-grandfather pushed him into the cell and slammed the door shut. By the time Dick regained his balance that he lost from the sudden shove and turned back to face Cobb, they were already locking the door. Guess the Talon was done talking to him. So, he turned to examine his ‘room’.

The walls looked like they were made of flat steel plates which was probably the reason the room was cold. The floor was the same way. Along the wall on the opposite side of the wall with the door was a metal slab that stuck out of it about two feet from the ground that Dick assumed was his ‘bed’. There was no pillow, or blanket, or any kind of mattress on it, but that didn’t really surprise him. Besides that, there was nothing else in the room. He tried looking for some way out or for something to help him escape, but there was nothing. There were even bars surrounding the lightbulb so he couldn’t touch it. He had to give this to the Court, they knew how to make sure their prisoners stayed in their cells.

With nothing left to do, Dick sat down on the metal slab. He knew he probably should get some sleep as he had no idea what was going to happen, but he didn’t think he’d be able to. There was too much on his mind. So he sat there and waited.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Dick didn’t fully know how much time had passed while he sat in his cell. He tried to keep track of the time at the beginning but soon lost track about five minutes after he was thrown in here when the door opened again. It was a Talon, holding a plastic water bottle. He tossed it to him, then quickly shut and locked the door as though he thought Dick was going to try to escape. He had thought about it, very briefly, but he knew that he wouldn’t get far so he didn’t move. Better to let them think he was going to be obedient to their wishes and catch them off guard later.

He looked very carefully at the bottle he was given, remembering that Bruce told him the only water he had access to when held prisoner by the Court was drugged. Moving it around in his hand, he didn’t see any leaks, so they didn’t put any drugs in it with a syringe or anything. He then tried the lid and found it hadn’t been opened at all. With no other way to test it, Dick took a small sip. It wasn’t until then that he realized how thirsty he was. He had no idea how much time had passed since Slade kidnapped him, it could’ve been days for all he knew, though he doubted it was that long. After another five, Dick didn’t feel any effects of being drugged, so he risked a few more sips of the water before putting it off to the side for later.

Dick didn’t bother keeping track of the time after that. It wouldn’t really do any good and didn’t really matter. The only thing it would do was tell him how long it was taking someone to rescue him and fill him with doubt and despair the longer he was there. Of course, that’s assuming anyone was actually looking for him and honestly, Dick doubted anyone was. His friends, those he considered his family, wanted nothing to do with him. The only reason they came to him was because of Slade attacking them. Slade however, was only attacking the Team was to draw him out. Now that he did that, he would leave them alone. They no longer needed him and made it clear they didn’t want him.

If he had to guess, it was about four hours after he was thrown in here when the door opened again. This time, it was Cobb and March instead of just a random Talon. Dick didn’t do anything until March said, “Come with us.”

“Where are we going?” Dick asked, not moving.

“You’ll see.” March replied, gesturing with his hand to come towards them. When he still didn’t move, Cobb apparently got impatient or annoyed and strode into the room, grabbed Dick’s arm and proceeded to start dragging him out. Once Dick got to his feet though, he walked alongside his relative, not wanting to be dragged.

Once they were out of the room, they led him down the maze of hallways again. This time, they didn’t go as far. They only took him down two halls, the last of which ended with another steel door. They brought him inside and Dick found that he was in a large, open, circular room with a cage-like dome over it made by what appeared some kind of metal. He couldn’t tell for sure from this distance. From where he was though, he could see windows on the top of the walls, revealing the floor above the one he was on and through those windows, he saw several people, in suits and dresses, wearing Owl masks over their faces. Standing on the other side of the room, or more accurately, the arena, was another Talon holding a sword.

“What’s going on?” Dick asked, having a really bad feeling about this whole thing.

“Think of it as an assessment. Show us how skilled you are.” March told him as Cobb released his arm. Giving no other answer than that, they walked out of the room, making sure to lock the door behind them. It was then that Dick noticed a sword leaning against the wall. Suddenly realizing what was going on, Dick turned back to face the Talon, just in time to see him rushing right towards him.

Dick flipped out of the way of the sword the Talon swung at him and muttered, “Whoa.”

Seeing his ‘opponent’ about to charge him again, Dick grabbed the sword and used it to block the Talon’s weapon. Not really finding a way out of this, he pushed the assassin away, got into a defensive position and said, “Okay then.”

As the fight commenced, Dick stayed on the defensive. March may have wanted to see what he was capable of but he had no intention of giving the man anything he wanted. If the Talon wasn’t outright attacking him, he wouldn’t have even touched the sword, but since he was being attacked, he was going to defend himself. Plus, being on the defensive had some advantages too.

One, it didn’t take as much energy as being the attacker did and with the Talon’s enhancements, Dick was going to need all the energy he could get. He was actually beginning to wonder if he should’ve gotten some sleep when he could. Two, it was actually a quick way to learn about your opponent’s fighting style. How they moved, which attack was their favourite and most likely to use. If he was going to escape, he would need to know everything he could about them. Three, if you go on the offensive, it you are the one attacking, you are more likely to make a mistake which was exactly what Dick was waiting for.

They had been sparring like this for at least half an hour when Dick noticed a change in the Talon’s movements. It almost like, he was getting agitated mad, or annoyed, or mad or something like that. It was almost like he didn’t expect the fight to last this long or something. That brought a smirk to Dick’s face which seemed to enrage the Talon even more. He lashed out with his sword, leaving his right side open. The hero ducked under the weapon and brought his own sword down on the exposed side, creating a deep slash right above the Talon’s hip and across his stomach. The Talon hissed in pain and took a step back. Dick’s smiled widened at his small success, but he knew that he would have watch it. He may have been injured but he’d heal quick, and Dick had a feeling the Talon would want revenge.

He couldn’t tell for sure due to the mask, but he was sure that the Talon was glaring at him and was angrier than ever. The Talon immediately attacking with more strength than he had been before. Dick had to be fast in order to dodge them or block them. It took a minute for him to realize that the person he was fighting was trying to drive him towards the wall, was trying to pin him against it to make him an easier target. Dick risked a glance over his shoulder and noticed something behind him and an idea came to his mind.

Dick started walking backward, letting the Talon think that he was being successful in pushing him back while doing his best to block the blows so he wouldn’t actually get hit. Unfortunately, he missed and the sword slashed his left leg from his knee to his ankle. Since he saw it coming, he was able to brace himself for it, but he couldn’t stop from wincing. As much as it hurt and the fact that it would slow him down, it did get him to back up to the door, more specifically, the keypad next to the door that he really didn’t pay attention to until now.

He had seen doors like that before. The keypads controlled the locks and since the door was steel, it was almost impossible to open it without either the combination or some kind of tool. Unless of course, the keypad was destroyed. Dick moved slightly to the side so he was directly in front of the keypad and stayed in place. The Talon, falling for the bait, went to stab Dick’s shoulder but Dick ducked and stabbed his own sword in the assassin’s leg with enough force that he fell backwards onto the floor. Looking behind him, Dick saw that the Talon’s sword had gone through the keypad and when he tried the doorknob, it open easily.

“Thanks for breaking the door.” Dick said to the Talon who was still struggling to get back up, but he didn’t wait for him to actually get to his feet. He just pulled the door open and ran.

Dick didn’t make it very far. His injured leg slowed him down a little, but not by much. He had done more with worse after all. However, at the first turn he would’ve taken, another Talon appeared, armed and ready to stop him. Lincoln March must not have underestimated him as much as he thought. Dick didn’t stop though. After what he just did, he knew that if he didn’t escape now, he probably never will. The Court would definitely take more precautions to make sure that this never happens again if the succeeded in stopping him, so he couldn’t let them stop him.

The Talon didn’t wait for him to get there. As soon as he saw Dick, he rushed towards him with his sword drawn. Once he got close enough, he swung at him. Nightwing blocked, but the Talon had put so much force into the blow and with his injured limb, he buckled under the weight and was forced to duck and take a few steps back.

Before he could make a move, an arm encircled his neck from behind him and pulled him back. At the same time, another arm wrapped around Dick’s right arm, yanking it behind him back and forced him to drop his sword. He gasped as the limb around his throat made it difficult to breathe and he turned his head to the side to who had grabbed him. When he saw the mask of a Talon, he realized that it was probably the Talon he had been fighting only minutes earlier. His injuries must’ve healed already, or enough that he could come after him. Turning back to look ahead, he saw Lincoln March walking towards him, noticeably relaxing when he saw that his prisoner didn’t get far.

“Nice try Richard.” March told him. Dick opened his mouth to respond but then saw the Talon across from him raise his sword before he slammed the hilt against Dick’s temple, knocking him out.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

It had been almost 18 hours since the fight against Deathstroke, since Dick was taken and Batman hadn’t been able to find any sign of where they went, even with his extremely advanced computer in the Batcave. It was beyond frustrating and brought up unwanted memories of the last time his son was kidnapped by the mercenary. It had taken over a month to find Dick and rescue him, and it took another two months for him to recover from his injuries and even longer than that for the nightmares to stop. He did not want a repeat of that. After he got Dick back, he had promised himself that he wouldn’t let anything like that happen again, and he was going to keep that promise.

However, it wasn’t just Slade Wilson who was a part of this whole thing. It was the Court of Owls, the ones who tried to kill him, who had killed so many people throughout Gotham’s history. He had hoped that they were successful in taking down the Court, hoped that it was over, hoped that Dick was safe from them, but he knew that there was a chance that he was wrong and yet, he didn’t prepare for the possibility of them coming back, of them going after his son. How could he have not seen this coming? Contingency plans were what he was he known for in the League, had gotten a lot of people mad at him, and yet he didn’t make one for this.

As Bruce sat back in his chair, taking a minute to rest his eyes from the glare of the computer screen in front of him, he tried to remember the last time he actually talked to Dick. If his memory was correct, then the last time he talked to him was only a day or so after he came back to earth after standing trial on Rimbor, when he had gotten mad and yelled at the young man over his actions while he was away. Why did he do that? He didn’t even have the whole story when he did that. When he did, he regretted how he acted, everything he said, but at that point, Dick had left the Manor. True, Bludhaven was only about two hours away, but apologizing was never something he was good at and the distance, the lack of his son’s presence, as much as it hurt, put less pressure on him to fix things.

Would the Court of Owls still have gone after Dick if he was in Gotham? The Court’s based in Gotham but if Dick was here, he’d be in the Manor, he’d be with Batman. He would’ve been protected. But he was all alone in Gotham and apparently, didn’t talk to or get help from anyone. Why didn’t he ask for help? If any members of the Team or the League knew what was going on, they would’ve helped.

A sudden flashing red light pulled Bruce out of his thoughts and towards the screen. When he saw what it was, he sat up straight and stared in confusion.

“What is this?” Bruce mumbled to himself, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Batman?” Bruce heard Tim’s voice. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he saw the teenager approaching him. Once he reached him, he asked, “What is it?”

“I checked to see if Nightwing’s trackers were working, there a lot and I wanted to see if there was a chance that either Deathstroke or the Court missed one, but they were all disconnected. Now though, one just suddenly started working again.” Batman explained.

“You think Nightwing managed to turn one on or something?” Tim wondered, a confused look coming upon his face.

“I wouldn’t put it past him.” Bruce responded. Dick did have a habit of doing things that Bruce wouldn’t expect and at times, think was possible, but he couldn’t say for sure. There was only one way to get the facts and that was to go there in person. So, he turned to Tim and said, “Get the Team, we’re going to check it out.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

It didn’t take long for Bruce and Tim to round up the Team, as they were all in the Watchtower, ready to go. Barbara was the only one not there, but as soon as she got the call from her mentor, she suited up and headed straight to the Watchtower. By the time Batman got there, all of the younger heroes were waiting for him with the exception of La’gaan due to his injuries, and were eager to help. Unfortunately, Batman doubted the place where Dick’s tracker was broadcasting from was where he or the Court was. He had checked the satellite images of the place along with the most recent maps and only saw one building that he believed was an abandoned factory of some kind. The tracker was most likely being used to lure him into a trap and he wasn’t going to bring all of these teenagers and young adults into it. So he chose Kaldur, Wally, Artemis, Roy, M’gann, Conner, Barbara and Tim to accompany him and ordered the others to stay put.

Within three hours of the tracker coming back online, Batman, with the others he brought, were surrounding the wide, one-story, abandoned factory. They remained hidden in the bushes, not wanting to be seen if there were any sentries guarding the place. Using the thermal imaging he had in his mask though, Batman didn’t see anyone. To be on the safe side, just in case his mask was faulty or something like that, he sent Superboy to take a closer look. With his x-ray vision and his hearing, he’d better be able to find out if there was anyone inside.

Superboy quickly returned and as he crouched down near Batman behind the bushes and reported, “I don’t see anyone here. The place is abandoned.”

“The tracker is still on.” He said quietly as he looked down at his wrist computer with a frown. After thinking it through for a few seconds, he ordered, “Spread out, and approach with caution.”

The Team slowly surrounded the building, entered it from different doors and windows, then spread out and searched the place. It wasn’t very big like factories in the city, so it wouldn’t take long to find anything. Already just by looking around and from what Superboy told him, Batman doubted that Dick wasn’t here. This whole thing screamed ‘trap’ to him. Nothing else about this sense.

“Batman, over here.” The Dark Knight looked over his shoulder to see Batgirl looking into an old, cardboard box by a table against one of the walls. He walked over and knelt down beside her.

“Nightwing’s weapons, and belt.” She told him, moving out of the way so he could look inside.

Batman reached inside and dug around to see everything that was in there before adding, “And his mask and gloves, and the trackers.”

“If they were turned off before, and there’s no one here, how did one turn on?” Batgirl questioned, not understanding how any of this could have happened.

“I’m not seeing any signs of a trap.” Robin spoke up. Batman looked at the other young heroes who had finished searching the small building and saw from the looks of their faces that they didn’t find anything either. Turning back to the box, planning to take it back to the Batcave, he found Barbara pulling out a white feather.

“This was at the bottom.” She said, handing the feather to him.

“It’s the same kind of feather that had Nightwing’s name on it.” Batman quickly realized. Feeling something engraved in it, just like the other one, he pulled out a magnifying glass that he had in his utility belt to take a closer look.

“What does it say?” Kid Flash asked, walking over to his best friend’s father, wanting to know what they found.

Looking over at the speedster, Batman said, “Gotham, it says Gotham.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Bruce has no idea what was going on between Dick and the rest of the Team. He doesn’t know that besides Artemis and Kaldur, they had been so angry and upset with Dick for how he handled the invasion that they had been ignoring all of his texts and calls. He will discover it later. Also, again, sorry for the sloppy fighting scene. I did my best. Hope you all liked this chapter though! See you all next week!
> 
> Lincoln March – For those that haven’t read the comics and want to know who Lincoln March is, he was running for mayor of Gotham when Batman learned that the Court of Owls is real and they try hunting him down. At first, Bruce thinks that the Owls are trying to kill Lincoln but then realizes he’s actually apart of the Court and took the drugs to give himself the abilities of the Talons before he ‘dies’. It’s later revealed in a different comic that he did indeed survive but that doesn’t happen in this story. He also thinks that he is Bruce Wayne’s younger brother because Martha Wayne was pregnant but was attacked by a Talon and went into labour prematurely and believed that she gave him (the baby) to this home for kids with special needs that Martha greatly supported which is where Lincoln grew up though according to Bruce, his baby brother (Thomas Jr.) actually died not long after being born. As far as I’m aware of, we still don’t know if Lincoln was telling the truth, or if it was just one of the Court’s many lies.


	14. Cards All Fold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from a line of the song Demons by Imagine Dragons

Dick was forced awake when someone dumped a bunch of freezing cold water on him. Gasping and spurting out the water that got in his mouth and nose, he found a Talon standing in front of him holding a large metal bucket.

After he caught his breath, Dick looked around. He was in a room he hadn’t been in before, was in an upright position, his arms raised above his head and chained to a metal pipe above him. There were also chains around his ankles, keeping his feet restrained to the ground. He’d have to examine them better to see if he could escape him from them. But for now, he turned his attention to the Talon that dumped the water on him and found a table nearby, and Cobb and March stood behind him, watching. And behind them, were two other Talons guarding the door.

“While I am not surprised that you would try to escape, I can’t deny that I am disappointed.” March said, walking over to stand in front of the hero.

“Glad to be of service.” Dick replied with a smile. March nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face, then punched him in the face.

Groaning in pain, Dick let his chin fall to his chest. His ears were ringing due to the latest blow, making it difficult to hear what was going on around him. He was able to make out someone, March, talking to him again.

“I see we will have to do this the hard way. Cobb, he’s all yours. Try to make him see sense.”

Dick opened his eyes in time to see March walk out of the room with the three Talons, leaving him alone with his great-grandfather. Cobb looked at him for a minute, then turned his back to Nightwing to face the table. Mouth full of blood, he spat it out, but other then that, he stayed still and quiet. March hadn’t said what exactly he wanted Cobb to do in order to get him to side with the Court but Dick knew what was about to happen. He had been in spots like this before, more often then he liked. He knew what to do. He pushed down the fear and dread that had started flooding his body and prepared himself for what was about to happen.

“You know, torturing me isn’t really the way to make me like you guys.” Dick told Cobb.

“I don’t care about you ‘liking’ us. I care about loyalty.” Cobb replied, turning around to face him, holding up a small dagger. Coming over to him, he added, “And you’d be surprised the things people will do in order to get the pain to stop.”

Before Dick could even think of a response to that, Cobb stabbed the dagger into Dick’s right shoulder. He was able to keep from screaming in pain, barely, but couldn’t stop a loud gasp from escaping his lips. It took a few seconds for Dick to get a handle on the pain and the control his breathing, and when he did, he saw that Cobb had already grabbed another knife. He wondered how long it would take before he blacked out, if Cobb was going to keep stabbing. Probably longer than he wanted. The Court, the Talons, were good at making people suffer without killing them.

As Cobb approached him again, Dick said, “Are you saying that even though you a loyal to the Court… you don’t like them?”

Cobb froze, clearly not expecting a question like that and needing a minute to figure out how his words gave Dick that idea. His face then turned colder than it already was and said, “This isn’t about me, it’s about you. You will be the Court’s next Talon. It’s your destiny.”

Dick grunted and lowered his head as his distant relative pushed the second dagger into his side, just above his hip. With his head down, he was able to see blood start flowing from his new wound, disappearing as the small and slow stream ran down his leg due to his black suit. He had chosen the colour black for his suit to help him blend into the shadows but it also, at times, hid how serious his injuries were. With the dagger still embedded in his skin, the edge of the hilt starting to turn red though, there was no hiding his injury. The level of pain didn’t help either.

“So you’re… gonna… keep stabbing me… until… I say yes?” Dick was barely able to get out, struggling to lift his head to meet Cobb’s eyes.

“Until you learn that resistance against the Court is futile.” Cobb answered, holding up another dagger that he had grabbed, letting Dick get a clear look at it. Knowing that there wasn’t anything he could do to stop what was happening since there was no way he was going to join the Court, Dick let his head hang low so that his chin was against his chest and did his best to keep from screaming as his great-grandfather stabbed the third dagger into his left shoulder.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Dick wished he could pass out, or at least, pass out quicker. He had lost count of how many knives Cobb had stabbed him with, but it was over 20, and he left every single one of them in Dick’s body. The 19-year-old knew that every stab, though extremely painful, wasn’t lethal and because Cobb didn’t take the knives out, there wasn’t as much bleeding as there would be otherwise. He wished he did though so he could pass out from blood loss.

Eventually, his body started to go numb and he felt light-headed. His ears were starting to ringing and instead of freaking out about it like he normally did as those were not good signs, Dick was glad. It meant he was about to pass out, finally. He was ready for it, was ready to fall unconscious. Ready for anything that might take him away from what was going on right now.

“Cobb, that’s enough.” Dick dimly heard March’s voice. He didn’t really care that he was now in the room though. Didn’t really care much about anything. He just wanted to sleep, so he did.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Pain yanked Dick out of his dark refuge. He tried to move, tried to get away from whatever or whoever was causing it but couldn’t. His limbs, his entire body actually, felt like it was made out of bricks. The only thing that he could move was his eyelids. Deciding to at least find out what was going on, he opened his eyes.

There was a yellowish light overheard, but not shining directly in his eyes which was nice. The light outlined the figures of two people standing on either side of him, figures wearing weird paper hats and masks over their faces, the kind doctors wore when in surgery. Adrenaline immediately flooded his body and he again tried to move but this time, what stopped him wasn’t lack of strength but something around his wrists keeping him down. Turning his head from side to side, he saw that his arms were outstretched, like a bird with its wings outstretched, and they were tied down with leather restraints. Then, he noticed an IV filled with a strangely coloured liquid sticking out of his arm.

“Wha…” Was all Dick was able to get out before the person on his left pressed an oxygen mask on his face. It only took seconds for him to realize that there was more than just oxygen being given to him and he turned his head to try and get away from it, but the person kept it on despite the movement and Dick once again, fell unconscious.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Barbara Gordon and Tim Drake made their way to the TV room in the Watchtower. After the had gotten back from checking out the abandoned factory where they found Nightwing’s mask, weapons, gloves, trackers and the owl feather, they went back to Gotham with Batman while the others headed back to the warehouse where the Team was staying. The following day, they had to go back to school/college and Bruce had to go to work. When the billionaire returned home, he went straight to work on trying to find Dick. Tim and Barbara joined him, but after two hours of just watching him work, having nothing to do, they decided to go see the other members of the Team.

As they entered the room, they saw Gar, Jaime, and Bart sitting on the floor in front of the TV with controllers in their hands, focused on the game they were playing. Cassie was lying on the sofa reading a book, Artemis and Wally were on the couch while Kaldur and Roy stood off to the side talking.

“Tim, Barbara, I thought you were both helping Batman.” Kaldur said when he saw the two, drawing the attention of everyone there.

“I think we were mostly just in his way.” Tim answered as he sat down beside Cassie, who moved over to make room for him while Barbara took a seat on the nearest chair.

“Has he found anything?” Artemis asked, leaning forward so she could get a clear line of sight on Robin and Batgirl.

“If he has, he hasn’t shared it with us or acted on it.” Barbara answered, sounding annoyed and frustrated with didn’t surprise the others. Though Barbara, Tim and Dick were the only ones who worked closely with Batman, they all knew that the Dark Knight was not known for playing well with others or sharing details about what he was working on.

“I can’t believe this is all happening.” Wally mumbled.

“It’s not the first Dick’s been kidnapped Wally.” Roy quickly reminded him.

“I know that.” The speedster snapped, causing the archer to raise an eyebrow. Taking a breath to calm himself, Wally then explained, “I mean, this whole business with the Court, one of the Talons being his grandfather.”

“Great-grandfather.” Barbara corrected though she kept her eyes on the floor.

“Whatever.” Wally was barely able keep from snapping again, “This whole thing is crazy. I’m still having trouble believing that all of this happened without any of us knowing anything about this.”

Ever since Bruce explained why none of them were made aware of the Court and its ties to Dick, Wally tried to recall everything that happened during that time. He remembered arguing with Dick, about leaving the Team, leaving the hero life. He didn’t understand why his best friend had such a hard time with it. He tried to tell him that they would still be friends, that no matter what happened he would always be there, but Dick not being supportive over his decision about what he wanted hurt. There was one time they went over a month without talking which was so strange because before they’d hardly go a day without at least sending a text. Before, he thought that it was because Dick was still upset about him leaving, but now he wondered if that was when he learned about the Court and just didn’t want to talk to him about it.

“That’s what happens when someone decides to keep secrets and we decide to ignore someone for seven months.” Cassie chimed in with a gentle voice.

“But, how did no one hear about people attacking Nightwing in Bludhaven, or how no one heard about the Court even attacking Batman or others in the city?” Wally questioned, getting off the couch to start pacing in front of the others. He knew that Bruce was very territorial when it came to Gotham, but the League looked out for each other. Maybe they had heard something about that but kept it to themselves.

“The Court is all about being secret, about hiding in the shadows. It’s literally said in their creepy poem. ‘ _Speak not a whispered word about them, or they’ll send a Talon for your head_ ’.” Tim replied, tensing a little as he thought about the group. After Batman had told them the truth about the Court, he did some digging into Bruce’s records about them as well as anything else he could find. What he did find gave him nightmares that night.

“Plus, you know Bruce hates other heroes being in his city and getting into his business. He hardly tells anyone what’s going on.” Barbara reminded him.

“But you’d think we’d hear about it on the news or something.” Wally nearly yelled, turned around to face them. He shrunk back a little when he saw the worried expressions they were wearing.

“Wally?” Artemis said with a worried voice, standing up to go over to him.

“I gotta go, run or something.” Wally responded quietly then walked out of the room. The others let him go, knowing he just needed some time alone.


	15. Defiance

The next time Dick woke up, he found himself lying flat on his back on something hard and a little cold. Moving his head carefully to see where he was, he found himself back in his cell. The movement, little as it was, made him aware of something else. His entire body aching, as though it was one giant bruise. It took a minute or two, but he then remembered Cobb stabbing him with a bunch of daggers and had a dim recollection of people dressed like doctors standing over him, but that was it.

Dick slowly sat up and looked around. The place was empty except for him. The only thing that was different was there were two bottles of water instead of just one on the floor beside him. Since his throat was extremely sore and dry, he reached to grab one, but then stopped when he noticed something. He was no longer wearing his Nightwing suit. The only thing he was wearing was a pair of sweats. It was then that he saw his injuries. The blood was cleaned off and the wounds looked like they had been cleaned as well, but they weren’t bandaged or stitched but they were no longer bleeding. In fact, they looked as if they were closing on the own or something because they looked like they were several weeks old. Was that possible? Had he been unconscious that long?

Deciding that it didn’t matter that much right now, he grabbed one of the bottles and took several gulps. By the time he was done, the bottle was nearly empty. He went to put it back down when his attention was drawn to the door. He could hear someone messing with the locks. Not sure what was happening, he sat still and awaited. Only seconds later, the door opened to reveal a Talon. He was starting to wonder if it was one of the same ones that had been around the entire time he had been here. He probably was.

The Talon stood there for a total 25 seconds before he apparently got impatient. In Dick’s defense though, he didn’t speak at all so he had no idea what the assassin wanted. When the assassin got impatient, he strode into the cell, grabbed his arm and pulled up off the metal slab. Not in the mood to be dragged around which he was sure would happen if he didn’t go willingly, he walked alongside the Talon and let him led him out of the cell and down the hallways.

The Talon brought him back to that arena-like room. On the other side of the room, there were two other Talons instead of just one like last time. From the way they were holding their swords told him that they were ready for a fight. And like last time, the Talon that brought him to the room left, locking the door behind him, exposing the sword that was left for him. Dick stared at it for a minute, then glanced back at the Talons and made a decision. He wasn’t going to fight, he wasn’t going to do anything. He didn’t care what they did to him.

_“Fight Gray Son.”_ Dick heard March’s voice though he wasn’t in the room. Examining the room more closely, he saw a speaker several feet above the door.

Looking up at the windows, he saw March standing by one, watching him. Dick stared at him and said, “No.”

March didn’t say anything, but he looked over at the Talons and nodded his head. Wondering what was going to happen now, he looked back over at the two people he was supposed to fight. In silence, they dropped their own swords, confusing Dick. They slowly walked towards him, circling him like he was their prey or something. He didn’t move though. He wasn’t going to do anything that the Court wanted him to, no matter what they were going to do to him.

In silence, Lincoln watched as the Talons attacked the young man. He had made it clear to them that they weren’t to do anything that could actually endanger their Gray Son’s life which was why they had dropped their swords. They could easily go too far and kill him. However, Lincoln didn’t think that Richard would actually refuse to fight, as he did not seem like the type to just let someone beat him up. He thought that he would at least defend himself, but he was surprising wrong. The Talons already had him beaten to the ground and he hadn’t done anything to get free from them or to push them away. It was strange to see someone so willing to be abused like this. Normally people fight against it or beg for it to stop, willing to do anything to get it to stop. It was confusing and yet, almost made Lincoln respect Richard a little more.

When it appeared that Richard was unconscious, he put his finger on the button of the intercom and said, “That’s enough. Take him back to his cell.”

The Talons quickly did what they were ordered and as they took Richard away, March said to himself, “I suppose we will have to try something different.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Dick never fully lost consciousness, though he didn’t open his eyes. He wanted to go back to sleep. Sleep sounded good. Sleep wasn’t painful.

Before he could fall asleep, the person carrying suddenly stopped and lowered him to the ground. He wasn’t that gentle about it but he didn’t just drop him either. Dick supposed he should be grateful for that. His body was bruised enough as it was, he didn’t need more. Plus, he was pretty sure his ribs were cracked at the very least. A fall would most definitely break them.

Opening his eyes a crack, he saw that he was back in his cell and that the Talon who brought him here was heading to the door. He didn’t leave though. Instead, he stood by the open door as though he was guarding it. Like he was waiting for something, or someone. Dick pushed himself into a sitting position and leaned his back against the door, doing his best not to outwardly groan as he did so. Then he waited for what was about to happen next.

Only seconds after he got himself up, Lincoln March walked into the room. Looking at him, he said, “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this Richard, but it does speak to your strength.”

“Oh March, I’ve been tortured far worse than this and didn’t break. You’re going to have to try a lot harder for any hope of getting me to turn against Batman.” Dick informed him with a smirk.

“Which is why we are doing this.” March told him. He then out his hand into his pocket and pulled out a syringe. Looking down at it, he continued, “I had really hoped that I wouldn’t have to resort to the use of drugs to get you to realize where you belong, but I will if I have to.”

Dick looked at the syringe for a minute, then turned his gaze to meet March’s eyes. He said nothing at all, he just stared at him, silently challenging him to do it. March sighed and said, “Alright then.”

March then looked back at the Talon and tilted his head in Dick’s direction. The Talon came towards the injured man, crouched down beside him and grabbed his hair, forcing him to keep his head still. Once he did that, March came over to them. He bent down and injected the liquid in the syringe into Dick’s neck. The ‘hero’ tried to pull away, but couldn’t with the Talon holding his hair. His captive slumped over to the side, falling to the ground as his head was released only seconds after the drug was injected. Once it was, March and the Talon headed out of the cell where Cobb was waiting.

“He’s stubborn.” Lincoln informed Cobb, coming to stand beside him while the other Talon shut and locked the door, then left.

“I’m well aware of that.” Cobb replied, remembering how he had tried to convince his heir to take his rightful place in the Court a few years ago, back when they first fought against Batman and his protégés. He refused their offer then too.

“We will have to do two more doses in order to weaken his body and brain enough for the other drugs. After that, it should be smooth sailing.” March told him, putting the needle back in his pocket.

“We wouldn’t have had to do that if you didn’t activate the electrum.” Cobb said, looking at the door of the cell where Richard was.

He had made it clear that he didn’t like the idea of activating the electrum before his great-grandson had accepted his role and proved his loyalty to the Court. It was too risky. One of the reasons the Talons were great assassins was because of their advanced strength, stamina, speed, and healing. That all came from the activated chemicals they were given. As much as William Cobb wanted his descendent to take his place, he knew that it would be a challenge to undue Bruce Wayne’s brainwashing. And the last thing they needed was Richard to attack them with the same abilities as him and the other Talons.

“Only his healing was activated, and it was only activated because you went too far too fast.” March responded with a harsh tone. He did not appreciate his decisions being questioned by the assassin.

“He was never in danger of dying. And you were the one who wanted him to be made into a Talon as soon as possible.” Cobb reminded him, insulted that March seemed to think that he was inexperienced enough to kill his heir. March glared at him, but ultimately dropped the issue and changed the subject.

“Any word of Batman, or any of those other so called ‘heroes’?” He questioned, needing to know if they were still safe.

With a shake of his head, Cobb answered, “None.”

“Good.” March said. When he saw the expression on Cobb’s voice, he let out an annoyed sigh and asked, “What?”

“Batman has shown himself to be extremely territorial. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was looking for his former apprentice right now.” Cobb informed him.

Scoffing, March said, “Batman has hardly been seen over the last year. Nightwing has had nothing to do with them for months, even when you sent those six Talons to Bludhaven and when you bombed the circus. He either didn’t ask for help, or he did and they didn’t come. They’ve shown they don’t care.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Cobb muttered under his breath though March still managed to hear it.

“I’ve met Bruce Wayne. He’s charismatic, but unemotional.” March told him.

“And I was held prisoner by him.” Cobb reminded his boss, “Harsh and unemotional he may be, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care.”

“Well, it’s practically impossible to find this place. He won’t find us, not in time anyways.” March said confidently. Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Under Wayne Manor, in the Batcave, Bruce sat in front of the computer while Barbara sat at a different table with her laptop. Tim had been with them but when Alfred realized that he hadn’t been sleeping, he put a strong dose of sedatives in his decaf coffee. The teenager was so tired that he didn’t even notice that the butler had switched his regular coffee with decaf or put sedatives in it until he was seconds away from falling asleep. When he had, Bruce carried him upstairs to his room before coming back to continue his search.

They still hadn’t found anything and it was driving Barbara nuts. After getting back from the Watchtower, she and Tim sort of ganged up on Bruce, wanting to know everything he did, but it turned out that he didn’t know much either. He had been going through his files that he had of the Court for any clues about where they might have another base but found nothing. He even went back to where he had been held captive by them to look for any clues, yet still found nothing. The little he did find lead to nothing but dead ends. So when Tim and Barbara offered, again, to help he was a bit more willing to let them.

Right now, Barbara was basically looking at almost all the buildings in the entire city. According to her mentor, the Court had been in Gotham pretty much ever since the city was first developed, so the odds were that their bases, their meeting places would be in buildings that were made back then. Their history was very important to them which shortened her search list a bit to just the places that were built back then, but unfortunately, a lot of those buildings were still around. Sure, some had been remodeled, but the foundations were still the same and most were still owned or run by the same families.

After almost three hours of doing that, Barbara came upon a black and white picture of a mansion that looked vaguely familiar. She quickly checked the date it was built and who owned it and found that construction on it started at the time Bruce told it would be and the owners were a rich and powerful couple from England. She then checked to see if the descendants were still around and found that the family line ended in World War 1 when the only child, a son, died with no children as he was only 16 at the time. Now, it was owned by the city, persevered as an historical sight and was completely empty.

“Bruce?” Barbara called out. He didn’t say anything but did give a small grunt, letting her know that he heard her.

“You said to find an old building or place in Gotham for the rich and powerful right?” Barbara questioned, still staring at her computer screen.

“Yes.” Bruce answered, now turning his head to look at her.

“What about this place?” Barbara asked, moving the screen to the side so he could see. Bruce stared at it for about two seconds, then stood up and walked over to her.

“I mean, it’s one of the first mansions ever built in Gotham. It’s nearby the other buildings where you found the Court’s meeting places, it’s hardly ever used now so it would be easy to hide in there.” Barbara told him.

“Or under it.” Bruce then mumbled. Barbara frowned and looked at the picture for any sign that there was something under the building.

Hearing the sound of typing on a keyboard, Barbara turned to see that Bruce had walked back to the Bat-computer. As she stood up and walked over to him, she asked, “What are you doing?”

“Finding out if there’s anything suspicious about that place.” Bruce replied, keeping his focus on what he was doing.

Barbara watched closely, trying to figure out what he was doing. She saw a small window screen open that was black, then suddenly showed what looked like a warehouse, one that she recognized. It was the special floor under the Wayne Enterprises building where Lucius Fox made the gadgets and vehicles for Batman to use. Then the screen seemed to start flying and made its way out of the floor and up the air vents until it came out from the top and the building and started flying over the city. It was then Barbara realized she was looking at a feed coming from a drone.

“What’s it doing?” Barbara inquired as it reached the mansion in question, the screen turning a different colour.

“Using its thermal scanner to scan for any heat signatures. It’s strong enough to scan as deep as 200 feet underground.” Bruce told her, still keeping his eyes on the screen. He directed the drone using his keyboard to focus on the ground under the large house to see if there was something there when the building showed nothing. It was then that he found heat signatures of over 20 people as deep as 50 feet under the place.

“That’s it.” Barbara whispered excitedly. When Bruce didn’t response, she said, “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Call Tim and the Team. We have another building to search.” Was the only answer Bruce gave, but it was enough for Barbara to let a hopeful smile spread on her face. If their intel was correct, then they had found where Dick was.


	16. The Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, because I still really don’t like writing fight scenes, I did my best to focus on events that take place while the fighting is happening to give you guys a break from my bad writing of fight scenes. Hope you like it!

Batman stood in the shadows, staring at the old mansion where his son might be. The place was quiet even though Superboy had confirmed that there were several people under the building. Superboy wasn’t with him now anymore though. He was with Kid Flash and Red and Arrow on the other side of the property while Robin, Batgirl, Aqualad, Miss Martian, Beast Boy, Impulse, Blue Beetle and Wonder Girl were with him. After he assembled the Team and told them about the building, he used the drone to map the maze under it. Then, he made the plan.

He and the majority of the Team would break inside, spread out a little, then purposely trip an alarm. The members of the Court would most likely flee to avoid being arrested for being part of the group while the Talons would rush to their location to fighter off the intruders. While they did that, Kid Flash, Red Arrow and Superboy would sneak in through another entrance and find Nightwing. With his speed, Kid Flash would be able to find the missing hero fairly quickly, and if he ran into any problems, he had some back up. Batman wished he could be with them, wished that he could be the one to find his son but if he had and had the others be the ones to lead the attack, the Court would definitely notice that and would find that strange. They’d easily figure out what his plan was. But if they saw him with his other protégé’s and the sidekicks and former sidekicks, then they’d assume it was just them, thereby allowing the other three to get in and get Nightwing undetected.

_“We’re in position.”_ Batman heard Red Arrow’s voice coming through his earpiece. To keep everyone focused on the task at hand, he had Miss Martian only set up a mind-link between their team and not with the other three. Instead, Red Arrow, Superboy and Kid Flash all had communicators that connected to his earpiece so they could still stay in contact.

Looking over at the young adults and teenagers with him and seeing that they were also ready, he said, “Alright. Let’s go.”

It was time to rescue his son.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

On the other side of the building, Kid Flash stood with Superboy and Red Arrow. It took every bit of self control Wally had to not just rush through the secret entrance that Batman had found with his drone when he mapped out the place and find Dick. After four days of looking, worrying, barely sleeping or eating, he was ready to find his best friend and get him out of here. He had no idea what was going in there, but from the limited information they got from Batman and from what Tim found when he went snooping around from what happened with the Court years ago, he knew it couldn’t be good.

Finally, they saw a red light being shone through the window of the old mansion, telling them that the others had entered and tripped the alarm. Silently, they made their way to the secret entrance and slipped inside.

Wally couldn’t help rushing off ahead of Conner and Roy once they closed the door behind them. He was a speedster, running faster than the speed of light was what he was known for. But right now, all he wanted was to find Dick as fast as he possibly could and get him out of here. And the sooner he found him, the sooner he could do that. The fact that the whole place seemed to made of hallways made it easier to speed ahead too.

Every now and then he had to stop and wait for the others to catch up, or he had to go back and let them know that the coast was still clear. The last they wanted or needed was someone seeing them and stopping them from getting to Dick. He was starting to get a bit discouraged though. Hallway after hallway, room after room, he kept coming up empty. He was beginning to wonder if Dick was even here at all, but every turn he made led him down another hallway which gave him hope that he might be here.

Finally, he found a flight of stairs that took him down deeper into the ground. It was so dark that it actually reminded Wally of a cellar. He was pretty sure that he was now getting to the Courts ‘dungeon’.

After getting to the bottom of the stairs, he saw that the whole place was empty which confused him a little. While the plan was that Batman and the other members of the Team would purposely raise the alarm so that all the Talons would go after them and leave the place unguarded but he would’ve thought that there would still be someone guarding their prisoner. Maybe they were overconfident in their security system or something. He quickly scanned the hallway, looking for any sign of traps or alarms but to his continued confusion, he found nothing. It didn’t make sense, but he decided to take advantage of that and started phasing through the steel doors and into the cells, looking for his best friend.

As he phased into one of the cells, he saw someone lying on the ground near the wall, completely passed out. Even though he wasn’t wearing his uniform, Wally would recognize the person anywhere.

“Nightwing.” The speedster took a step closer then remembered the other two that were with him that he left behind. He turned on the communicator that Batman gave him, Conner and Roy and said to the two heroes with him, “Guys I found him. He’s in the cell in the middle of the hall on the left side.”

The redhead didn’t listen to their response because at that point, he looked back at Dick and felt his heart drop to his feet. Slowed down by shock, Wally went to Dick’s side, getting down on his knees beside him. He hesitantly and carefully put his hand on Dick’s shoulder to turn him over to get a better look at him, though he was scared to. Dick wasn’t wearing a shirt or shoes or socks, clad only in a pair of old and ripped sweatpants, making the evidence of torture was obvious. He was covered in bruises, scrapes and cuts that looked deep, though they weren’t bleeding. Actually, it looked like someone had wiped off the blood but there were still some traces left and some of the cuts still had blood around them like it had just happened. Dick was so still that even the small movement of his chest, telling him that he was indeed breathing, Wally felt the need to put a hand on Dick’s wrist and check his pulse. It wasn’t as steady as it should be, but it was there.

The sound of metal creaking and cracking told Wally that Roy and Conner had finally caught up to him and were now breaking the lock so they could open the door. He didn’t look take his eyes off Dick though. Not when he heard the squeak of the hinge when the door opened, not even when he heard Roy’s shocked voice say, “Oh my G*d.”

“Nightwing, wake up. Come on, Dick, wake up.” Wally begged, slightly shaking his friend to wake him up, but he didn’t want to hurt him anymore than he already was.

“Is he okay?” Roy asked as he got to his knees beside his fellow redhead.

“He’s breathing, and he’s got a pulse.” Wally reported to the others, still not looking at them. He could see Roy’s hand quickly run through Dick’s dark hair before going to his neck to make sure that he did have a pulse even though Wally already he told them and Conner would tell them if they were wrong.

“We need to get him out of here.” Conner told them from his spot in front of the door.

“Is it even safe to move him?” Roy wondered. Dick was obviously injured and he didn’t want to make it worse.

Wally ignored him and continued to try and wake the young adult, “Dick? Dick, come on, wake up.”

Finally, the figure groaned and his eyes started fluttering open. Dick’s normal bright and expressive blue eyes were dim and dull, as though he wasn’t really aware of what was going on. They

“Hey, there you are.” Wally said with a smile. Dick however frowned, obviously confused. Before he could say anything, Roy chimed in.

“It’s going to be okay. We’re getting you out of here. Can you stand?” The oldest redhead asked.

Dick, still frowning, did his best to nod and tried to get up, but could hardly move. If it wasn’t for Roy and Wally’s help, he wouldn’t have made it to his feet at all. And once he was on his feet, his legs buckled under his weight and he started to fall. The two redheads held him up, but both looked over at Conner, who quickly understood what was happening. He walked over to them and scooped up the younger hero into his arms. As independent as Dick was, there had been times when he was so badly injured that the Superman clone had to carry him, so it wasn’t as awkward as it might be if he was carrying someone that he had never met.

“It’s okay, we got you Dick. We got you.” Conner assured him, holding him as securely as he could. Dick looked a little dazed, but was able to nod and somewhat grip Conner’s shirt to help him stay in place.

“We got Nightwing, we are on our way to the bioship.” Wally reported back to Batman as he started leading the others back down the hall towards the stairs.

_“How is he?”_ Batman’s emotionless voice asked as they made their way up the stairs.

“Not good.” Wally told him and that was all he could get out before he saw three Talons standing at the other end of the hallway that they needed to go down in order to get out. Wally looked over his shoulder at Roy and Conner who had also reached the top of the stairs, and saw that they had also noticed the new hurdle they would have to get through.

Roy stepped in front of Conner, who was putting Dick on the ground while Wally immediately rushed towards the assassins, turning into a yellow blur as he did so. Despite all of their training, the Talons had never had to fight speedsters before and were clearly struggling to get a strike in at him, but since there were also three of them in such a small area, Wally was also struggling to not get hit. As Conner joined the fight, Roy crouched down in front Dick with an arrow in his bow, ready to fire at any of the Talons who would try to come near them. He didn’t have to use it though. With Wally’s speed, Conner’s strength and nearly invincible skin they were able to quickly knock out the assassins, then made their way back to Roy and Dick.

“We got to go. They won’t be out for long.” Wally told them. Roy helped Conner pick Dick back up and they made their way down the halls until they reached the secret door that they had come through.

Once they were out of the hidden entrance, they took off running to the bioship. It was in camouflage mode so no one could see it. If they didn’t know exactly where it was, then they wouldn’t even know it was there at all. As soon as they were inside, Conner carried Dick towards the back where the little med-bay was with Wally while Roy radioed Batman to let him and the others know that they got Dick out.

Conner gently laid him down on the bed and Wally grabbed the first aid kit. If they thought Dick looked bad before, he looked even worse now. His skin had paled to the point that it looked translucent and his breathing had weakened. He seemed to be trying to stay awake, but it was clear that it wouldn’t last long. He didn’t even have the strength to wince as Wally started cleaning and bandaging his injuries as Conner, hearing the others coming towards the ship, still fighting the other Talons, went to go help them.

“It’s going to be okay Dick. You’re going to be okay.” Wally tried to assure him as he did his best to clean his injuries. The raven-haired man however said nothing and closed his eyes.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

With several of well thrown grenades and flash bombs, Batman and the others were able to break free from the fight and escape the building. There were a few of the younger vigilantes who were injured but they didn’t seem at all that serious which was a minor miracle. Batman supposed that their powers and different fighting styles helped in that regard, along with the fact that he equipped them with several weapons designed to incapacitate the Talons and keep them at a distance. He knew how deadly the Talons were and didn’t want the teenagers to end up seriously injured or worse.

Right now though, all of his thoughts were on his son. Wally had told him that they found him and that they were heading to the bioship. Then Conner arrived to join the fight as they were trying to make their escape from the building which told him that they had made it to safety, but Wally had also said that Dick was not in good shape. Though it probably wasn’t noticeable, Bruce was inwardly panicking. He had already lost one son, he could not lose another.

Entering the bioship with the others, he demanded, "Where is he!"

"Over here!" He heard Wally shout from near the back. The rest of the Team looked on back stayed near the front of the ship and got in their seats while Batman rushed over to the med-nay.

Wally was standing beside a small bed and on was Dick. Batman quickly made his way to the bedside and looked over the young man, covered in bruises and blood and cuts. His skin was paler than it naturally was and he looked seconds away from passing out. Actually, he looked seconds away from death. Just to make sure, he reached forward and placed a hand under Dick's head while he grabbed Dick's wrist with the other, checking his pulse. The action caused Dick to open his eyes and look up at him.

"I'm sorry, sorry B." Dick mumbled with a guilty voice.

"Don't speak. Stay awake." Batman ordered and Wally, still standing by the bed, found his blood starting to boil at the man's tone. His son had been kidnapped, tortured, could possibly dying and Batman could be just as cold as he normally was? He couldn't even bring himself to show any kind of emotion? For a brief second, Wally wondered if Bruce even cared about Dick. He quickly squashed the thought though. He had been around Batman and Nightwing, and Bruce and Dick long enough to know that they were father and son in every way but blood. Of course Bruce cared.

Dick stared up at Batman, trying to see his father's eyes through his cowl even though it was specifically made to keep people from seeing it. He wanted to stay awake, wanted to do what Batman was telling him, but it was as though his entire body was turning against him. He could no longer feel his limbs, couldn't even really feel Batman's hands around his wrist or under his head. Finally, he let his eyes shut and fell into darkness.

"Nightwing? Nightwing!" Batman shouted when he realized that his son had lost consciousness. The young man didn't respond though, his head lying limply in the Dark Knight's hand.

"Tell Miss Martian to get this ship to the Watchtower as possible!" Batman ordered Wally, giving him his infamous Bat Glare for good measure.

"Got it." Kid Flash said as he stood up and sped out of the med-bay. Once he was gone, Batman turned his eyes back to Dick.

His son's face was covered in scrapes and bruises. It was clear that someone had tried to clean up the blood at some point, but Bruce could still see the red stains on the young man's skin. Kid Flash must’ve already cleaned them. Cradling his oldest child close, he whispered, "Hang on chum. You're going to be okay. Just hang on."

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Lincoln March stared up at the night sky, ignoring the Talons and other members of the Court escaping their now exposed base under the old mansion that belonged to the Court since it was built. He didn’t care about that right now. What he cared about, was that Batman was able to find them, and arrived with more than just Batgirl and Robin. Gotham’s Dark Knight hardly ever worked with anyone other then the children he forced into his crusade. The only time he ever seemed to be working with anyone else was when he was the Justice League, but he hardly ever let them in Gotham or let them help fight his battles. He knew that there was a very slight possibility that Batman would have them help, but he didn’t. He brought in more children that they hardly knew anything about to help him steal their Gray Son back.

It was an unexpected, unthought of move. Which is why it worked. As angry as he was that their Gray Son had been stolen from them again by Batman, he had to admit, he knew what he was doing. He continued staring at the sky, wondering how exactly they had escaped when he saw Cobb coming over towards him from the corner of his eye.

“You didn’t stop them from getting him, did you?” Lincoln asked Cobb, though he already knew the answer. And knowing that he knew the answer, Cobb didn’t say anything.

“Have everyone still head to the old base. We have work to do.” Lincoln then ordered. Cobb nodded and walked away, not hearing Lincoln muttering under his breath, “Starting with putting Batman down and getting our Gray Son back.”


	17. Black and Blue

The second the bioship landed, Batman scooped his son into his arms. There was not a moment to lose. Filled with worry and fear of losing another chid, he carried him out of the ship the before the door was even fully open. The rest of the Team followed close behind him, also filled with worry about their teammate.

Dr. Mid-Nite, Superman and Wonder Woman were waiting for them in the large open room where M’gann set down her ship. Once they saw Batman rushing off the ship carrying Nightwing in his arms, they ran alongside him towards the infirmary. Since Dr. Mid-Nite was the only League member that was a doctor as the Watchtower right now, he had asked Superman and Wonder Woman to help him as he wasn’t sure how badly injured Nightwing would be. And the two heroes were completely willing to do anything that would help the young man that they had known ever since he was child.

As soon as they reached the doors that led to the infirmary, the doctor, the Kryptonian, and the Dark Knight ran inside. The Amazonian however paused for a brief moment to address the other heroes who were apart of the rescue mission.

“You all wait here.” Wonder Woman quickly ordered the Team, only sparing a glance at them before she followed Dr. Mid-Nite, Batman, Nightwing, and Superman through the doors.

“But,” Wally started to protest but Artemis grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to turn to look at her.

“Wally, they need space and no distractions. Let them take care of Nightwing.” Artemis told him. Wally looked back at the doors for a few seconds, then nodded and went to sit down on one of the chairs in the hallway, which the others were also doing.

Cassie took the seat next to Tim, who hardly seemed to notice. She reached over to grab his hand and said quietly, “I’m sure he’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, yeah he will be.” Tim replied, though he didn’t sound so sure and he didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes on the floor, but he did squeeze her hand back. When he noticed that Barbara was sitting on his other side, he looked up at her and saw her tense face, as though she was struggling not to show any emotion, or was struggling not to completely break down.

“You alright?” Tim asked. Barbara glanced over at him, then turned her attention to the doors and said, “I’ll answer that once I know how Nightwing is.”

After that, the place fell silent. Not a word was said, not a word needed to be said. All of their minds were thinking the same thing. Worry for Dick, guilt for shutting him out for seven months, and fear that they wouldn’t be able to make it right.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

“Bring him here.” Dr. Mid-Nite directed them to the metal examination table as he, Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman entered the nearest exam room. Batman immediately strode across the room and laid the young man down on the table before he took a few steps back to let the doctor work so he wouldn’t get in the way.

“Batman, you should go wait outside.” Dr. Mid-Nite told him when he saw the Dark Knight was still there. He wasn’t sure how badly injured Nightwing was and he didn’t think it would be a good thing to have the overprotective father in the room.

“No, I’m not leaving him.” Batman replied, keeping his eyes on his son.

“Bruce -” Diana tried to intervene as she put a hand on his shoulder, but stopped when Bruce turned his head to glare at her and said, “I am not, leaving.”

The Amazonian looked over at the doctor, who sighed and nodded. Turning her gaze back to Batman, she removed her hand and said, “Alright.”

The next hour or so passed in a tense and near silence. The only time someone spoke, was when Dr. Mid-Nite asked Superman or Wonder Woman or Batman something. He had Superman use his x-ray vision to find out about all of his injuries as that would be faster and easier than using a machine. Wonder Woman helped clean Dick’s cuts and stab wounds as Dr. Mid-Nite put in an IV and ran some other tests. Once he got the all clear, Batman started stitching Dick’s injuries.

Finishing the stitches, Batman looked up at the League’s doctor who was whispering with Superman while looking at the test results.

“What is it?” Batman asked, seeing the confused expression on his face.

Dr. Mid-Nite looked up at him but instead of answering his question, asked, “He was only kidnapped four days ago, right?”

“Yes.” Batman answered.

“He was in good condition before?” The doctor then questioned.

“Haven’t heard otherwise.” Batman replied, still waiting for Dr. Mid-Nite to tell him what was happening. When he didn’t, the Dark Knight took a step a closer to him and asked with a no-nonsense tone, “What’s going on?”

“From the tests and what I saw when I used my x-ray vision, he should be a lot worse than he is.” Superman told him. Knowing from the way Batman was looking at him that he wanted more information, he continued, “His ribs had been broken, but they are healing at a much faster rate than normal. And it looks as though he had been stabbed, several times, but those have nearly completely healed.”

“And I’m finding a strange chemical in his blood that I haven’t seen before.” Dr. Mid-Nite added.

“The electrum.” Batman realized. It was the only thing that made sense. Dick should not be healing like that unless the Talons activated the electrum that was in his body. They had taken the tooth the put the electrum in his body out once they found it, after discovering how Dick was connected to the Court, but they didn’t know for sure how long it would take for the chemical to completely get out of his body, if it ever would.

“The what?” Dr. Mid-Nite wondered, which reminded Batman that he hadn’t explained any of this to the doctor yet.

“The chemical that gives the Talons their abilities, including extremely fast healing. Dick has it in his system. They must’ve activated it.” Batman explained.

The doctor/superhero stared at him for a few seconds, then said, “I’ll run some more tests.”

“He will be okay though, right?” Batman then asked, needing the confirmation that his son would be alright.

“I think so, but I’d like to run more tests to be on the safe side.” Dr. Mid-Nite told him, then walked back over to the injured hero. Batman relaxed slightly, but stayed still and kept his eyes on Dick’s limp form, hoping that Dr. Mid-Nite was right, that he would be okay.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Outside in the waiting sat the entire Team, except for those that were on different missions, and some of the Justice League members. Knowing they wouldn’t be allowed inside, the younger generation of heroes made themselves comfortable in the hard seats and waited for news. Green Arrow and Black Canary arrived about 20 minutes later but Black Canary quickly saw that Beast Boy, Robin and Batgirl had a few cuts and bruises and dragged them off to a different infirmary room to get them cleaned up. They didn’t want to, and insisted they were fine but Black Canary wouldn’t hear it. Besides, it would probably be awhile before they heard anything about Dick. By the time she patched them up, luckily their injuries weren’t serious, the Flash was standing by the chair his nephew sat.

Martian Manhunter and Red Tornado showed up about two hours later and asked if there had been any news, but there hadn’t been at all. They did their best to assure them that everything would be fine before they left as they were the ones on monitor duty. As they walked away, Aquaman arrived.

It was the first time they had seen Aquaman in four months as he had been called to Atlantis and hadn’t been able to return until now. He also asked how Dick was and after assuring them that Dick was strong and would be alright, he revealed that he wouldn’t be staying. He had been informed of La’gaan’s injuries, his disregard for orders and after talking with him himself, he decided that it would be best to take La’gaan back to Atlantis for the time being. He then wished them well and headed off to get Lagoon Boy.

Again, there was nothing for those remaining in the hallway to do but wait. By the time that hour four passed, Wally was pacing up and down the hallway.

“Wally?” Artemis called out when she heard her boyfriend almost growl in frustration after checking his watch again.

“It’s been four hours.” He told her, stopping his pacing to look at the blonde.

“Surgeries can take a while.” Tim reminded him in a quiet, empty tone. He was doing his best to remain calm when his stomach was actually clenching up painfully in worry. He wanted answers just as badly as the speedster did, as badly as everyone in the room did.

“But we still haven’t gotten any update.” Wally responded.

“I’m sure we will soon.” Kaldur tried to assure Wally as well as the others who were also starting to show signs of impatience.

Wally continued his pacing back and forth down the hall, wondering if he could actually run inside, find out what was going on and rush back without anyone noticing. He was pulled from his thoughts when the door finally opened and he heard Kaldur say, “Dr. Mid-Nite.”

“How is he?” Wally asked, rushing to stand in front of the doctor who had just come through the doors with both Superman and Wonder Woman. Everyone else who had been waiting, stood up and also came over to them.

“He’s stable. I believe he will make a full recovery.” Dr. Mid-Nite informed them, causing all of them to sigh in relief.

“Can we see him?” Barbara asked, just as anxious to see the young man as the others.

“Not right now. We still need to keep a close eye on him. Batman is with him.” The doctor replied, his words causing all the heroes to frown.

“Why do you need to keep a close eye on him if he’s stable and going to recover?” Roy wondered, a confused look on his face.

“You know his connection to the Court and about the electrum they use to give the Talons their abilities?” Dr. Mid-Nite asked. The others looked a little confused but nodded, remembering what Batman had told them when they first learned that it was the Court of Owls who had taken Dick.

“They activated the electrum in Nightwing. He’s healing at a much faster rate than a normal human should be.” The doctor informed them.

“Isn’t that a good thing though?” Conner wondered. There had been so many times he had watched his human teammates get injured and nearly die because they didn’t have powers. During all of those times he wished that they did so they would be safer out in the field and now Dick apparently had that and they were treating it like it was a problem. He didn’t understand what could really be wrong about that.

“While helpful, we still don’t know what exactly they did so we don’t know what effects it could have. We should know more in the next 24 hours.” Dr. Mid-Nite explained. Glancing around the room and seeing how exhausted everyone looked, he said, “Meanwhile, you should all go get some rest. You look like you could use it.”

As much as they all wanted to see their friend, they knew that there would be no arguing with Dr. Mid-Nite or with Batman. And if they were being quite honest, they were all exhausted. So they all headed to the bedrooms that were reserved for them whenever they had to stay the night at the Watchtower, hoping that they would be able to see Dick in a few hours.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

A few hours later, Superman quietly re-entered the infirmary room. His line of sight was somewhat blocked by the man sitting in the chair beside the bed, but at the moment, his focus was on the person on the bed. Dick was still out cold, but he was now wearing a light grey muscle shirt which hid all of the bruises and cuts he had on his chest, stomach and back and there was a thin white blanket covering his legs. There was an IV going into his arm and a bandage visible on his cheek. Though he knew that Dick was going to be okay, he couldn’t help but wince at the sight, especially when he used his x-ray vision to get a clearer look at his injuries earlier, back when they first brought him in.

“How is he doing?” Superman asked as he walked over to Batman, no, Bruce Wayne. The Dark Knight wasn’t wearing his cowl.

“Still sleeping. Dr. Mid-Nite said that though, the electrum is causing him to heal at a faster rate, he needs his rest.” Bruce answered, still watching Dick carefully, waiting for any sign that he was waking up.

“That’s good.” Clark responded, a little confused but glad by the news that the young man who adopted him as his uncle so many years ago was going to be okay. When he realized that Bruce didn’t seem to be as cheerful, Clark asked, “What is it?”

“This never should have happened. If he had just told me what was going on, if I had didn’t fight with him all those months ago, if I didn’t let so much time go without contacting him,” Bruce broke off, lowering his head so he could look down at the ground.

Ever since Bruce learned about Dick’s kidnapping, the guilt he had always carried with him got 100 times worse. None of this would’ve happened if he had gone to talk to Dick, if he had swallowed his pride and said sorry, if he had asked him to come home, if he had explained that he didn’t have all the information when he yelled at him. But he didn’t. He didn’t seek him out, didn’t apologize, didn’t explain, didn’t tell him the truth. That when he arrived and found out the bare minimum of what happened, he was terrified. Terrified at how he had almost lost Dick, Tim and Barbara during the invasion, especially after losing Jason only a year ago, and terrified that it was actually Dick who planned the whole thing. He took Dick in so that he wouldn’t become like him, and that’s exactly what ended up happening. So he did what he does best, push people away and now his son was lying on a hospital bed in front of him with only himself to blame.

“Bruce, stop. This isn’t your fault. You made your mistakes, but so did all of us. We all let him down. But it was the Court who did this to him, not you, not us, no one but them.” Clark told him, putting a hand on the billionaire’s shoulder.

“Maybe, but what we did was worse.” Bruce turned his head to look Clark straight in the eyes before he continued, “I talked to the entire team, to the entire Justice League Clark. No one knew what was going on. Ever since the invasion, no one had talked to him besides Alfred and Kaldur, and only twice, for each of them. We left him completely alone, thinking he had no one. What affect is that going to have on him?”

Clark didn’t really know what to say to that. He didn’t know anything about any of this, or anything about the Court and he felt guilty about it. True, it wasn’t really his fault as he had no idea what was going on, but he couldn’t remember the last time he actually talked to Dick. He had been apart of his life ever since he started out as Robin, was around enough that he had started calling him ‘Uncle Clark’ and he had started considering Dick as his nephew. But as he got older and more independent, Clark wasn’t able to spend as much time with him. Now knowing everything that had been going on during the last seven months, he wished that he had tried harder to stay in touch with him.

Opening his mouth to say something, he quickly shut it when the figure on the bed groaned and turned his head to the side.

“Dick? Are you awake?” Bruce asked with a hopeful tone, putting his large hand over Dick’s smaller one.

Slowly, blue eyes, normally bright but now exhausted and dim, opened. Looking at the Gotham vigilante, he croaked out, “B?”

“I’m right here.” Bruce told him, giving the young man a small, rare smile and a gentle squeeze of his hand.

“Where,” Dick started to ask but was forced to stop when he started coughing. Bruce moved to put his arm under Dick’s shoulders and helped him up so he’d be able to breathe more easily while Clark went over to the table on the other side of the hospital bed where a cup and a jug of water sat. He filled the glass half-way and handed it to Bruce.

Once Dick stopped coughing, Bruce helped him drink the water before giving the empty cup back to Clark to deal with. As he laid his son back down on the bed, he said, “You’re in the Watchtower infirmary. You were injured but you’re going to be okay.”

Dick clearly tried to keep his eyes opening, fighting against his exhaustion. Bruce knew that he wanted answers, that he was still confused but he also knew that Dick needed his sleep. Lifting a hand to brush away his eldest’s black locks of hair away from his face, he whispered, “Go back to sleep Dick, it’s alright. Everything’s alright.”

Clark waited until his saw Dick’s eyes close and heard his breathing even out before he turned his attention to his friend. While Bruce was better at hiding it, he could tell that he too was exhausted. He knew that ever since the Dark Knight learned of Nightwing’s abduction, he spent every moment he could searching for him. Clark doubted Bruce got more than a few hours of sleep in the last several days while they looked. While he knew that the older man had probably gone longer with less sleep than he had, it still wasn’t healthy. And now that Dick was found and safe, it was time that he started looking after himself as well.

“You should get some sleep too.” Clark told Bruce, who immediately shook his head.

“I’m fine.” Bruce insisted. He had left his son alone for months. He wasn’t going to do that again. Sleep could wait.

“Bruce,” Clark started but stopped when the door burst open and a figure in red appeared out of nowhere.

“Superman, Batman. You two need to come and see this.” Barry Allen told them with a worried expression on his face. The two heroes exchanged glances before Bruce looked back over at Dick. Seeing that he was fast asleep and knowing that Barry wouldn’t have come in unless it was important, he put his cowl back on and left the room with the Kryptonian and the original speedster.


	18. Start a War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some things that happen in this chapter that are probably a little out of character, but there’s another note at the end of the chapter that explains it better. I hope you all like this chapter!

Batman and Superman followed the Flash to the living room where Wonder Woman, Black Canary and Green Arrow were, apparently, waiting for them. They looked over at them when they heard the three come in, but they didn’t say anything. They simply turned their heads back to face the TV that was on. Batman was about to ask what was going on, but then he saw what was on the screen and froze.

_“Reports have been coming in almost non-stop in the last two hours of masked people attacking civilians in old Gotham. These attackers are also suspected of being responsible for breaking into the homeless shelter and the medical clinic. There are also rumours floating around that they have broken into Wayne Enterprises though no one has confirmed that yet. Details are still coming but the police are urging everyone to stay in doors and keep the doors and windows locked.”_ The reported said as a dark and grainy picture of a Talon appeared in the corner of the screen. Batman felt his blood begin to boil. He had expected that the Court would retaliate in some way for their attack on their base and for rescuing Dick, but he never imagined it would be like this. This was way too public than what the Court preferred, and they had never attacked civilians on the streets before. At least, not that he was aware of. What on earth was going on?

“I thought you said the Court stays hidden. That they don’t want anyone to know that they actually exist. What are they doing?” The Green Arrow asked, turning his gaze from the screen to Batman.

“They’re starting a war.” Batman answered, keeping his own gaze on the TV, watching what was happening in his city. Filled with even more anger than before, he turned around and started walked towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Superman asked, already going after the Dark Knight.

“To Gotham, to take down the Court, once and for all.” Batman answered as he reached the door. Before he could actually leave the room though, Superman grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“Batman, you can’t do it alone.” Superman said when Batman turned around to face him.

“This has nothing to do with the League.” Batman insisted through clenched teeth as he squeezed his hands into tight fists.

“Maybe not, but it has to do with you, and with Nightwing. Not to mention they hired Deathstroke who attacked the Team, the Team made up of our proteges, our sidekicks. And you brought them to rescue Nightwing, so they’ve hardly fought the Court. That brings us into it.” Wonder Woman stated as she crossed her arms.

“You said that this happened because they thought Nightwing was alone. Let’s show them that he’s not.” Superman then added. Batman stared at him, then looked over at the door.

Realizing what Batman was now worried about, the Flash cut in and said, “The Team can stay here and watch Nightwing. He’ll be safe here, with them.”

Batman stared at the heroes in the room with room. He wanted to argue with them. After all, the Court was his enemy, Gotham was his city, and Dick was his son. He didn’t want them involved. However, seeing the determined expressions on their faces, Batman wasn’t sure he’d win that argument. He hardly ever lost any arguments he got in with any members of the League, but now he wasn’t sure. And Wonder Woman did have a point. Plus, as much as he hated to admit it, he could use the help.

“There’s nothing I can say to stop you, is there?” Bruce asked, and in response, every single person in the room shook their heads. With an annoyed sigh, he said, “Alright, let’s go.”

 **YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYYJYJYJYJYJ**

Artemis walked slowly towards the infirmary room, balancing the sandwiches that M’gann made on the plate she was carrying. After Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Green Arrow and the Flash told them what was going on in Gotham about an hour ago, they left to go take care of it, with Martian Manhunter joining them, and ordered the Team to stay with Dick. They all then quickly rushed to Dick’s room to see him, but after a few minutes, Dr. Mid-Nite came in and said that they all couldn’t be in there as a lot of people could agitate Dick when he woke up. So, she and M’gann went to the kitchen to make some food for everyone while the others decided to either go to the monitor room where Red Tornado was or to the living room to watch the news in the hopes of finding out what was all going on in Gotham. Only Barbara, Wally, and Roy were left in Dick’s room to watch over him, waiting for him to wake up.

As she entered the room, she quickly found the three redheads in chairs surrounding the hospital bed. Dick was still fast asleep which slightly disappointed the blonde. She knew that he needed his rest but she was hoping that he would be awake by now. She even brought an extra sandwich for him just in case. Since he was still asleep though, she walked over to Barbara and Roy as they were the closest to her. Hearing her approach, Barbara turned her head to look at her.

“Here. Thought you guys would be hungry.” Artemis told her as she handed one of the sandwiches to Barbara.

Taking it, Barbara gave her a small smile and said, “Thanks Artemis.”

Artemis then went to go over to Roy to give him his sandwich, but saw that he was sound asleep. So she put it on the table beside him and whispered to Barbara, “Make sure Roy eats this when he wakes up.”

When Barbara nodded, Artemis turned her attention to Wally. He hadn’t moved at all since she entered the room, which was extremely worrying. Wally was hardly ever not moving, even when he was asleep. He and Dick actually had that in common. Since he didn’t seem to not what was going on, Artemis walked over to him and held out one of the remaining sandwiches right in front of his face. Wally finally looked over at her, but only for a few seconds before his gaze turned back to Dick. He also didn’t touch the food at all.

“You need to eat Wally. You’re going to collapse if you don’t. And Dick needs you to be up and alert.” Artemis told him when he didn’t take the food from her.

“I just wish he’d wake up.” Wally replied, watching Dick’s sleeping form.

Sighing, Artemis put the sandwich down on the table next to the bed, crouched down beside her boyfriend and said, “Dr. Mid-Nite says he needs his rest. The more he rests, the quicker he recovers.”

“None of this should’ve happened. We should’ve been there for him.” Wally told her, shaking his head as he spoke.

“We knew nothing about the Court Wally.” Artemis reminded him, trying to ease the guilt that she knew he had been carrying ever since Dick was kidnapped.

“Because I was too busy being mad at him for being mad at us for leaving the Team.” Wally responded. Raising his head to look up at her, he continued, “He’s my best friend Artemis. We used to tell each other everything. I was one of the first people he told his secret identity, I was one of the only people who knew everything about his life. We kept no secrets from each other. Even the whole plan with the invasion I knew about. But this, the Court, his great-grandfather, I knew nothing about any of it.”

“He didn’t want us to know Wally.” Barbara chimed in. She had been doing her best to tune out the conversation as she wasn’t a part of it, but with nothing to really distract her and with Wally’s voice getting louder, she couldn’t help it. And she couldn’t help joining in when she heard what the speedster was saying.

Turning his head in her direction, Wally asked, “Why? Did he think that we would suddenly think he was an assassin or something? Did he think that we would think less of him because of who his great-grandfather was?”

“I don’t know.” Barbara answered. She had been asking herself the same thing ever since she learned about the Court, “But we can ask him that when he wakes up.”

“If he’ll even talk to us after everything we did, after everything I did.” Wally muttered, turning his gaze back to Dick.

After that, the room became quiet as everyone waited for Dick to wake up.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

While Artemis took dome food to the infirmary, M’gann took a tray of the sandwiches they made in the opposite direction to the living room where the majority of the Team was. Tim and Cassie were sitting on the sofa watching the TV with Gar who was on the couch beside them. Kaldur was also sitting on the couch, but on the other end talking quietly with Conner who was sitting on the chair near him. Bart and Jaime weren’t there, which meant that they were probably in the monitor room with Red Tornado.

“Any update?” Gar asked, looking up at M’gann when he saw her enter the room with a large tray of sandwiches for the others.

“Not that I know of. Artemis just went in with some food for Barbara, Roy and Wally.” M’gann answered, putting the tray on the coffee table before grabbing one and going to sit beside the green shapeshifter.

“That’s good, they need to eat.” Kaldur said, reaching for a sandwich. He had noticed that the three redheads hadn’t been eating as much as they should’ve or getting enough sleep. He tried to get them to rest and eat, but they barely listened to him. He didn’t blame them though, he knew that they were worried, they all were.

“Any word from Batman, and the others?” M’gann then asked, looking at the others.

“None yet. Not even on the news.” Tim informed her. They had kept the TV on, hoping to see what was going on since they knew that they wouldn’t be getting any updates from the League, but there hadn’t been anything about the situation in Gotham since Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, the Flash, and Martian Manhunter left.

Suddenly Conner stood up with a growl, kicking the chair he was sitting on backwards and stormed to the other end of the room.

“Conner!” Kaldur shouted, standing up along with M’gann while the others flinched back in shock.

“I hate this. Dick’s our teammate, we should be out there helping take out the people who are hunting him, not sitting here being useless.” Conner told them as he turned around to face them, his voice loud enough that it could be considered shouting.

M’gann sighed and floated over to her boyfriend. Putting her hands on both of his cheeks, she said in a calm voice, “It is because he is our teammate that we are here Conner. He needs us at his side, for when he wakes up. If the Court messed with his head like they are apparently capable of doing, then we need to be here to help him, just like with Deathstroke.”

Conner still looked upset with the whole thing, but calmed down and nodded, which caused M’gann to smile. Suddenly, Tim spoke up, “What happened with Deathstroke?”

Kaldur looked over at Conner and M’gann, who were also looking at him with unsure expressions. The Atlantean had hoped that with everything going on that Tim had forgotten the obvious history between Dick and Slade Wilson but apparently not. He had tried to brush the subject off earlier as there were more important things going on and it wasn’t his place to tell him with all happened. He didn’t really want to tell them, it was Dick’s story not his, but now that Tim brought it up in front of Cassie and Gar which could make it harder for him to avoid answering and the fact that Tim could easily hack into the Team’s files, along with Batman’s, and find out himself what happened made him think that he should tell him. If he was the one who told him, then maybe he could tell him the basics and keep Tim from looking for anymore information.

So, Kaldur sighed and said, “About a year after the Light infiltrated the Watchtower, Deathstroke showed up on our radar. He was, at the time, suspected to be working with the Light. There were people, reporters, police officers, politicians who were on the League’s side that started, having deadly accidents. We believed that the Light was having Deathstroke doing that so they could have people under their thumb replaces those now dead. But because there was no proof and there were no obvious connections between their deaths, the League had us look into it.”

“We ended up catching Deathstroke right in the act. We saved the person he was trying to kill, but that didn’t convince the officials that the other deaths were also done by Deathstroke. So we decided to track down Deathstroke and find proof by ourselves. But Deathstroke surprised us, and kidnapped Dick.” Kaldur then paused, allowing Cassie to a chance to speak.

“What? Why?” Cassie asked, completely confused as to why an assassin would kidnap someone who was getting in their way.

“We didn’t know. It took us over a month to get a lead on where Deathstroke took him, but by the time we got there, they were both gone.” M’gann replied, lowering her eyes to look at the floor. Even though it had happened years ago, she still felt guilt that it had taken so long to figure out where Slade was keeping their friend and teammate only to arrive and find them gone.

“But we had him on the run, and were able to track him down to an old hideout, in Siberia.” Conner added, seeing the guilty expression on his girlfriend’s face.

“We were able to get Dick out, but he was, very badly injured. Deathstroke had been torturing him. And Deathstroke was able to damage the bio-ship. We were able hide in the bio-ship, but we were unable to take off for almost four hours. It took Dick two months to physically recover from what Slade Wilson did to him.” Kaldur then finished the story.

“Why did Deathstroke kidnap him though?” Cassie repeated her earlier question when she had still gotten no answer.

“Apparently, he wanted Dick to be his apprentice, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Conner answered with an angry and disgusted voice.

“Deathstroke wanted him, the Court wants him, Dick’s pretty popular.” Tim commented, though he wasn’t really surprised. He had known for years how talented, strong and skilled Dick was. He had to be to become Batman’s partner, especially at such a young age.

“He’s very skilled. It’s why he became our leader.” Kaldur said with a small, proud smile. He had always known, ever since the Team was first started, that Dick would be their leader. He only became leader until the youngest yet most experienced hero was old enough. And when he was, he stepped aside and let him take the spot that belonged to him.

“It’s why he knew what to do when the invasion happened.” M’gann added. When everyone turned to look at her with confused expressions, she added, “Despite how much it hurt that he didn’t trust us, he was right. If we knew that Kaldur was a mole, we wouldn’t have fought that hard against him. And if we knew that Artemis’s death was fake, we wouldn’t have reacted as much as we needed too to convince the Light we believed she was dead. And considering that Roy had been mole and none of us saw it coming, or with Jaime, being kept in the dark was the best way to ensure that the plan succeeded.”

The room was then quiet as they thought about what M’gann said, all silently agreeing with her. Then Cassie asked, “So, what now?”

“Now, we wait for Dick to recover from this and for the League to deal with the Court. Then, we apologize.” Kaldur answered.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Batman drove the batmobile towards old Gotham as fast as he could. He had already wasted enough time going to the Cave, but he needed to. He had to get some more weapons that he knew he’d need to stop the Talons, he was running low since the fight at the Court’s hideout, and get the car. He knew that using the zeta-tubes would be faster, but it would be better to have the car there in case someone got injured, so they could get out of there as fast as possible.

As he entered the oldest part of the city, he noticed the change immediately. There was no one on the streets, all the lights from the apartments and houses were off, even the bars and clubs were closed and locked up. He couldn’t even see anyone lurking in the alleys. The place was dead like he had never seen before. His attention was taken off of that though by a Talon standing in the middle of the street. Batman immediately braked, slid to a stop, put the car in park, got out, and walked over to the Talon. He was surprised though when the Talon took off his helmet and revealed himself to be Lincoln March.

“Welcome back to Gotham Batman.” March greeted him with a smile, coming to stand about five feet in front of him.

“Openly having a bunch of Talons attack people, that’s quite a bold move for the Court, March. Did you really think no one would notice that?” Batman questioned, standing still though his eyes quickly scanned his surroundings, looking for any Talons that could be in the area. Since March had taken the electrum and activated it, he was just as much of a threat as the Talons and if there were others in the area, then taking him down would be even more difficult.

“I hoped you would. I wanted to talk to you, and I figured this way, you’ll know exactly how far I’m willing to go to get what I want.” March replied, still grinning.

“And what is it you want?” Batman asked. He knew the answer, but he needed to keep March talking so he could get more information about what he was planning.

“I want what you took from us. I want the Gray Son.” March answered, sounding as though he was starting to get irritated.

“Not going to happen.” Batman immediately told him, shaking his head as he did so. At that, March became furious.

“He doesn’t belong to you. He belongs to us, was promised to us. You have no right to take him. Just like you have no right to try and take this city. Gotham and Richard Grayson belong to the Court of Owls, and always will.” March snapped, his voice getting louder than it was before.

“Nightwing is not an object. He is a person, and has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with you, with Cobb, or with the Court. He doesn’t belong to you. He doesn’t belong to anyone.” _Not even me_ , Batman thought to himself before he added, “And neither does Gotham.”

“You got lucky last time we fought. Do you really think you can survive another war with the Owls?” March asked, a smug look replacing the anger, “You have no idea, how far I’m willing to go to take both Gotham and Nightwing back.”

As March spoke, Batman saw at least ten Talons suddenly appear from the alleys and roof tops. They slowly walked towards their leader, their swords out and ready to be used. Batman didn’t let that faze him though. After all, March wasn’t the only one who had help in fighting this battle.

“And you have no idea how far I’m willing to go to keep them out of your hands.” Batman replied, staring down March despite the fact that he was clearly outnumbered. March suddenly looked a little unnerved and his eyes focused on something behind Batman, which told the Dark Knight that Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow and Black Canary had arrived. He clearly wasn’t expecting that.

Smirking at the uneasy expression that was now on March’s face, Batman said, “You want a war? You’ve got one.”

 _So you wanna start a war in the age of icons, so you wanna be immortal with a loaded gun, so you wanna start a war_ – **_Start a War_** **, Klergy**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know the Court probably would never do something so public, but they kind of did do something like this in the comics City of Owls and Night of Owls, and honestly, this is where I saw this story going. Basically, Lincoln March is basically so angry that he failed to stop Batman from taking their Gray Son and is terrified of the person actually in charge of the Court and is desperate. So he’s thinking that if he takes down Batman and others who stand in the Court’s way, his failure will be overlooked because he destroyed Batman and got Dick to become their Gray Son but isn’t thinking about the possible consequences of his actions. That’s why he’s doing this. Also, I threw in some Conner and M’gann because I realized that I hardly had them in the story and that kind of bugged me. Line at the end of the chapter and the chapter title is from the song Start a War by Klergy and Valerie Broussard, it’s a really good song and I thought it suited this chapter, you guys should check it out. Hope you all like this chapter! See you all next time!


	19. Waking Up

Dick was woken up by the sound of loud snoring. Not the most pleasant way to wake up, especially with a bad headache, but it was better than cold water being dumped on him. He tried to ignore it at first, but it was so annoying that he opened his eyes and found himself in an infirmary room in the Watchtower. And beside him, snoring up a storm, was Wally.

“Wally?” Dick whispered, reaching out to shake his shoulder. Wally jerked and his head snapped up, but when he saw that Dick was awake, he smiled.

“Hey Dick. How are you feeling?” Wally asked as he grabbed a cup of water with a straw and held it in front of his friend’s face.

“I’m alright.” Dick answered after taking a long sip. He then saw two people from the corner of his eye and turned his head. When he saw them, he smiled and said, “Hey Roy. Hey Barbara.”

“Hey Dick.” Roy said, putting a hand on Dick’s shoulder with a smirk.

As he spoke, Barbara moved to sit down on the edge of the bed. When he was done, she smiled and said, “Hi. It’s good to see you awake.”

“What happened?” Dick immediately asked, having a hard time remembering what all happened and how he ended up here.

“What do you remember?” Barbara asked, wondering what he could all recall. There was no point in telling him something that he already knew.

“I was with the Court, I was in a cell. You two were there.” Dick looked at Wally and Roy, then was quiet for a few seconds, trying to remember more but couldn’t, “Then nothing.”

“Yeah, you were pretty out of it, and you passed out once we got you to the bio-ship. You woke up once, when Batman was here, but other than that, you’ve been sleeping.” Wally filled him in.

Before Dick could respond to that, Barbara said, “But Dr. Mid-Nite said you’re going to be just fine. You just need some rest.”

Dick nodded and let himself relax on the mattress. Even though he had just woken up, he was so tired. He was about to fall back asleep when he thought of something. He opened his eyes again and asked, “How long was I there?”

“About five days.” Wally answered.

The younger hero nodded again and again was thinking about going back to sleep when his brain, which was working a lot slower than it normally should realization something. Wally said that Bruce had been with him, and he had a dim memory of waking up and seeing him, but he when he glanced around, Bruce wasn’t there. Looking back at the others, he asked, “Where’s Batman?”

The three redheads looked at each other. They hadn’t at all thought of what to tell Dick if he asked where Bruce was. They couldn’t tell him the truth. If they did, he’d try to get up to go help them fight the Court even though he was still healing. He’d also feel extremely guilty and blame himself for all of this even though it wasn’t his fault. And they couldn’t just say nothing. He’d start panicking and he needed his rest.

“He uh,” Wally started then stopped, unable to come up with an excuse. Luckily Barbara did.

“Something pretty big came up, and he left with some of the League to go deal with it. But he’ll be back as soon as he can.” She said with her best reassuring smile.

“What was it?” Dick asked, having a growing suspicion that something else was going on, something that they weren’t telling him.

“Nothing you need to worry about. Just rest, okay?” Roy told him, trying to sound comforting instead of sounding like he was giving him an order. Batman’s first protégé however was quick to see that something was going on and called them out on it.

“You guys are hiding something.” The three again exchanged looks at Dick’s accusation before Barbara turned to him and asked, “Dick, do you trust us?”

“Yes.” Dick answered after a minute of hesitation. They didn’t really blame him though. They deserved that for reacting so badly to the truth about the invasion and for going seven months without contacting him in any way.

“Then trust us when we tell you that everything’s fine and under control, okay?” Barbara told him.

Dick stared at her, then turned his gaze to Roy and Wally. He wanted to trust them, he really did, but he couldn’t help but feel that whatever they were hiding from him was important. That there was something major going on. It was making him realize how the others must have been feeling, or felt, when he was keeping his plan to deal with the invasion. Despite wanting to demand answers, he couldn’t be a hypocrite, so he nodded and decided to drop the issue. However, at that moment, Bart came speeding into the room with some news.

“You guys need to turn the TV on and see what’s going on in Gotham right now. Those Talons are totally crash and,” Bart suddenly stopped, only now seeing that Dick was awake, “oh. Hi Dick.”

Turning his head to face the others, Dick said with an angry and confused voice, “The Talons?”

“Thanks a lot Bart.” Roy told the youngest speedster sarcastically, giving him his best death glare.

“Sorry.” Bart whispered, getting a bit terrified that they were now going to start yelling at him for accidentally revealing to Dick what was going on. Not wanting to hang around to see what was going to happen, he turned and ran out of the room.

When Roy put his attention back on his injured friend, he found him sitting up and about to get out of bed. He immediately put his hands on Dick’s shoulder, pushed him back down on the bed and said, “Dick stop. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Going to go help.” He answered, trying to push Roy’s hands off of him. Wally and Barbara however, were quick to try and stop him.

“Dick, you are in no condition to fight. You need to stay here and rest.” Wally told him.

“I’m fine.” Dick insisted, still trying to get up despite the three people trying to stop him, “I need to go to Gotham.”

“No you don’t. Batman is there, so is Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow and Black Canary. They’ve got it under control.” Barbara informed him, gripping his arm tighter.

“They shouldn’t be. It’s my problem.” Dick responded, trying to sound confident and serious, but he couldn’t hide the guilt from Barbara, or Roy, or Wally. They were some of the very few people who knew him the best.

“No, it’s not. It’s all of our problem.” Roy told him with a forceful tone and a forceful grip, successfully getting Dick to sit back and stop fighting.

“It has nothing to do with you guys.” Dick countered. After all, this was all his problem. The Court of Owls was after him. They had no reason to get involved.

“If it has something to do with you, then it has something to do with us.” Roy explained, his words shocking Dick into silence.

At first, he didn’t think they’d come and rescue him at all, wanting nothing to do with him or caring about him at all. After all that time with no contact, it was the only conclusion he could come to. And when they did, he figured that maybe they did somewhat care, enough that they didn’t want to leave him prisoner to his and Batman’s enemies, but this he didn’t expect at all. For seven months, he thought they all hated him, including his best friends. Yet here they were, telling him that just because it had something to do with him, they were automatically involved.

“We know that we have been terrible friends Dick, and we are so sorry for that. But we do care about you. Your problems are our problems.” Wally apologized, something he knew he should’ve done the minute he saw the acrobat, something he should’ve done months ago actually.

“I’m not going to let Batman and the others with him get hurt because of me. Especially if I’m not even involved in the fight.” Dick said, the guilt he was feeling seeping into his voice.

“Dick,” Roy started to protest again but Dick quickly cut him off.

“I’m going, to go help.”

“You know that the other members of the Team are here, and will help us keep you here and in bed if we tell them to.” Barbara pointed out.

Turning his head to look right into her eyes with a slightly smug look on his face and said, “And you know that I know how to sneak out of here and either get away from all of you or beat you in a fight.”

Nobody could really deny that. Dick was more skilled than all of them, had sparred against them all, and was trained by almost all of the Justice League members. And his injuries were almost completely healed so they wouldn’t slow him down by much. While he probably couldn’t take them all at once, he would still be able to escape fairly easily. All he would have to do is get to the zeta-tubes, and they’re not that far from the infirmary. It wouldn’t be hard for him to get there.

“So, are you guys going to try and stop me?” Dick asked when they stayed silent. When he saw the unhappy expressions on their faces, he pleaded, “Guys, I need to do this.”

“Batman is so going to kill us.” Wally muttered, already knowing from Barbara and Roy’s expressions what they’ve all decided.

“You mean,” Dick started, a hopeful look coming onto his face.

“You’re not going alone.” Roy told him. Though he still didn’t want his friends getting in the middle of his fight, Dick knew that it was either this, or nothing.

“Okay.” Dick agreed with a smile. He then got up off the bed, without anyone stopping him, but then realized something, “Oh crap.”

“What?” Barbara asked, hoping that he just thought of something that they hadn’t which would keep him from actually going to Gotham.

“I don’t have a suit.” He told them. He hadn’t even thought of it until he saw the new pair of sweats he was wearing. Roy and Barbara would about to let out a breath of relief when Wally ruined it.

“I think you have an old one here actually.” Wally said, remembering seeing an old Nightwing suit around the Watchtower somewhere though he couldn’t fully remember where it was.

While Roy and Barbara glared at Wally, Dick ripped the IV out of his arm, stood up and said, “Okay. Let’s go.”


	20. Everything Burns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay everyone, this is the last chapter with fight scenes. After this, it’s over. I hope you guys are able to get through it. I’m also putting up a warning because near the end, there is a somewhat graphic death scene. I don’t think it’s too bad, but it’s definitely a reason why this story is rated T. If it makes you guys uncomfortable at all, you can skip this chapter as the events that happened in it will be summarized in the next chapter. Chapter title and quote at the beginning of the chapter is from the song Everything Burns by Ben Moody ft Anastacia. Hope you guys like this chapter!

_“'Till everything burns, while everyone screams, burning their lies, burning my dreams, all of this hate, and all of this pain, I'll burn it all down, as my anger reigns, 'till everything burns” – **Everything Burns,**_ **Ben Moody ft Anastacia**

Nightwing was the second team member to arrive in Gotham via zeta-tube. Aqualad, as the leader of the Team went first as was custom, though Nightwing suspected it was also because if they let him go first, then he’d run off without the rest of them. They were probably right about that.

When the others heard what Dick, Roy, Wally and Barbara agreed on, they immediately argued against it. Batman and Superman had both ordered them all to stay in the Watchtower with Dick. They were a lot harder to convince than the others were, even when Dick told them that he was mostly healed. Eventually, after a long arguing and a little bit of yelling, they began to realize that nothing they tried would keep Dick out of Gotham and out of the fight. And that, mixed with their own desire to help the League fight the Court of Owls, made them finally agree to suit up and go to Gotham.

Looking at the city he grew up in, Dick felt his blood boil in his veins. The place looked like a warzone. There was visible damage on the building, probably accidentally caused by the League as they were fighting the Talons, and there were the distance sounds of screaming and fighting. The only thing really missing was people running like crazy and the sound of gunfire. Luckily, there was neither, at least, not around them. He always thought it was a little weird that the Talons used swords when guns were more effective, but right now, he was glad for that. It lowered the chance of an innocent civilian getting caught in the crossfire.

“Whoa.” Impulse exclaimed, looking at all the damage the fight had done to their surroundings. As everyone else arrived, they all had the same expressions on their faces as the youngest speedster did.

“Remember what I told you about the Talons, and how to stop them?” Nightwing asked the group. There was no way he was going to let them go and fight the Talons if they forgot or weren’t listening to what you told him. When they all nodded, he said, “Okay, then let’s do this. If any of you need help, you call for it immediately.”

With that being said, everyone instantly headed out in the direction where the action was taking place. Dick didn’t move though, in spite of the fact that he knew he should be. As he watched the young heroes, the guilt that had been there the second they got involved, grew and mixed with fear that seemed to weigh him down. He knew they were strong, capable fighters, and he told them that the best way to incapacitate them was to freeze them. Wally actually quickly rushed to Central City to get one of Captain Cold’s cold guns that the police still had in evidence, which he figured would come in handy. The others then quickly decided to try and either stick near Wally, or Conner as the clone could use his ice breath to freeze people. As much as it somewhat sounded like a solid plan, Dick knew there was still a chance they could get hurt, or worse, and if they did, he’d never forgive himself.

“You okay?” Batgirl asked, coming to stand beside him.

“I really wish they weren’t here. They shouldn’t be a part of this.” Nightwing told her, staring at the disappearing figures of the Team as they rushed out into the city.

“They wanted to come. It’s their choice.” Batgirl reminded him. She knew it was useless though because Dick always blamed himself whenever something bad happened, and he would do the same if anything happened to the Team.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” She couldn’t help but ask as she looked Dick over. He was still really pale and though he was moving okay, he looked like the smallest breeze would knock him over. She was really beginning to regret letting him come to Gotham.

“I’m fine. Let’s go.” Nightwing responded and without giving her a chance to object, he took after the others.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

It didn’t take long for the Team to find the fight or to join in. Despite knowing what they were walking into, they weren’t expecting this. Even Batgirl, who had fought the Court before, had no idea they had so many Talons. They were soon spread out, fighting one on one with the enemies of Gotham. Robin and Batgirl however, remained near the League, and Batman. They knew that the League was aware of their presence the second they showed up, but it wasn’t until Superman froze the majority of the Talons and the others were defeated by the heroes that Batman looked at his proteges, clearly not happy to see them at all.

“What are you all doing here?” Batman demanded, his voice calm yet furious which would’ve had Batgirl shaking in her boots if she hadn’t gotten used to it over the years.

“Nightwing found out what was going on. He was going to try to come alone, so we decided to come help.” Robin explained.

Batman’s eyes immediately narrowed at her as he asked, “Is Nightwing here?”

When Batgirl and Robin didn’t say anything, Batman shouted, “You were supposed to keep him safe!”

“You want to try telling him to do something when people he cares about are fighting a war against people who are after him?” Batgirl asked. Batman couldn’t say anything to that. He knew that Dick was extremely stubborn. When he stayed quiet, Batgirl added, “He would’ve come without us and you know it.” 

Knowing there wasn’t anything he could say or do about it now, Batman said, “We’ll deal with this later. For now, let’s just get this over with.”

Neither Batgirl or Robin argued with that.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Nightwing did his best and fought well against the Talons, but anyone who was paying close attention could tell that he was struggling to hold his own. This was the first Talon he was fighting tonight and he already felt like he was about to pass out from exhaustion. Maybe his friends were right about him not being ready for a fight. Luckily though, he managed to deliver a hard blow to the assassin’s head that knocked him out. He then kicked him in the chest which sent him tumbling off the two-story building they were on and into the rive below. That should take care of him, for a while at least. He then climbed down the fire escape to the street to look for the others.

“I must admit,” A voice said the second he hit the ground. Dick immediately spun around and found a Talon walking towards him as he continued, “I didn’t expect you to recover this fast.”

“I would’ve thought you’d have learned to not underestimate me by now.” Dick told him, holding his escrima sticks up, ready to fight. Though the Talon hadn’t removed his mask, he recognized his voice. William Cobb.

“And I would’ve thought you’d learn and accept the truth about where you belong.” Cobb replied, still walking towards him. He stopped though when he was about 10 feet away from him.

“That will never happen.” Dick insisted. He had told this to his great-grandfather so many times and he still seemed to think that he could change his mind. He was clearly insane, and delusional.

“Then I have to kill you.” Cobb told him, sounding extremely disappointed.

“Go ahead and try.” Dick dared him, giving him a confident smirk even though he was seriously beginning to question if this was a good idea. He had no idea if he could beat Cobb, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.

He wasn’t in the best shape, he knew that. He also had a very clear memory of the last time he fought Cobb. He only won because he got lucky. Dick doubted he’d get that lucky a second time. Then again, he might not need it. After all, he was trained by Batman, one of the best fighters in the world, and by the Justice League and by Deathstroke. While he didn’t like using the mercenary’s fighting moves, he would if he needed to. And he even learned a bit from the Court itself. As he charged against the Talon, Dick let everything he knew take over. 

In all honesty, Dick had very little memory of the fight against his ancestor. Every move he made, every attack he blocked, it was all instinct. He didn’t need to know how to move, his body already knew. Everything he was taught by everyone he knew just took him over. The next thing that he was really aware of, was that he was holding Cobb’s sword in his right hand instead of his escrima stick. His other stick was still in his left hand but he had no idea where the other one went. And lying on the street in front of him with gashes in both of us arms and both of his legs that were almost deep enough to completely sever them from his body was William Cobb, without his helmet.

“It’s over Cobb.” Nightwing told the figure lying injured and unarmed on the ground. Though he looked to be like he was no longer a threat, he kept the sword and his remaining escrima stick pointed at him. He knew not to underestimate his great-grandfather.

“You are aware, if you do this, word about Richard Grayson’s connection to the Court will be found out.” Cobb replied, struggling to get into a sitting position. He couldn’t do much of that though with his limbs nearly cut off, despite his healing abilities.

Dick almost froze when he heard that. He had never thought about what could happen if his connection to the Court became known. Now that he was thinking about it, he slowly started to hesitate. If it was made public, the police would probably bring him in for questioning, he’d probably never be a cop again as they would assume that he was in league with the Court, especially if they said he was. And the people of Gotham would turn on him. While he was fairly liked by most people, there were still some who thought he was nothing more than a dirty thief from the circus who should’ve died with his parents, that he was nothing more than a charity case. He was already so afraid of how his friends would react to the news, he wasn’t sure if he could handle the whole world finding out. And if they revealed that Richard Grayson was Nightwing, that Bruce Wayne was Batman, they’d all be ruined.

But as he into William Cobb’s face, he knew that in the end, it didn’t matter. Whatever happened, they’d deal with it. They couldn’t just let the Court go free.

“I don’t care.” Dick told him. Leaning closer to Cobb, he said, “You, and every other member of the Court will be brought to justice for all of your crimes.”

“No, I won’t.” Cobb declared, then pulled something out of his belt, something that looked like a detonator. Dick instinctively took a step back as Cobb continued, “After what happened last time, I made sure I will never be a prisoner again. And if you insist on taking me prisoner, then you have no one to blame but yourself for this.”

Before Dick could react in any way, Cobb pushed the button. The veins in his head started to turn a bright yellow and Dick quickly realized what was going on. He closed his eyes, just seconds before he heard a muffled _bang_ , followed by a _splat_. Wet, warm and sticky drops of what he knew to be blood hit him in the face. Slowly, he opened his eyes, just in time to see Cobb’s headless body fall to the ground.

Dick felt himself sink to his knees, staring at the body. A part of him felt relieved. It was over now, with his great-grandfather at least. There was no way he could heal from that. And yet, a part of him felt guilt, like a type of grief. He knew that the Court was evil, that his ancestor was evil and needed to be stopped but watching his own relative kill himself because he refused to be taken prisoner was, horrifying. Then he realized, that it couldn’t end any other way. If he was a prisoner, he’d eventually escape like he had last time. The only way he’d stop was if he died. And even though it was by his own hands, Dick felt guilt because he forced him to do it.

Suddenly, as he continued staring at the dead Talon, feeling like he wasn’t really there, like he wasn’t connected to his own body, he felt an overwhelming desire to go home. He didn’t want to be here anymore. He didn’t want to be dealing with any of this anymore. He just wanted to go home where he was safe, go to sleep and pretend that this was all just a bad dream.

“Nightwing!” Dick heard Bruce shouting out. He didn’t move though, not even when he felt a hand suddenly fall onto his shoulder and Bruce’s voice right in his ear asking, “Nightwing, are you alright?”

“Dick? Dick, look at me.” That got his attention. Bruce hardly ever called him by his real name when they were in the uniform. Dick turned his head to face him and saw that Batman was on his knees beside him. Once he was looking at him, Batman repeated his earlier question.

“Are you alright?” Dick nodded, but apparently something was seriously wrong with his response because he could see the small, almost invisible changes in the exposed part of Batman’s face. He looked worried.

“Yeah. Can we go home now?” Dick asked quietly. All of his energy was completely gone. He was so tired. He just wanted to go to bed. He just wanted to go home and finally feel safe.

He must’ve really looked pitiful or something because Batman suddenly wrapped his arms around him, pulled him close and said, “Yeah, we can go home.”


	21. Worn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who skipped the last chapter, they all went to fight the Court, Dick defeated Cobb but Cobb revealed that he had a bomb put in his own head and detonated it, killing himself, because he didn’t want to be taken prisoner again. The chapter ended with Bruce finding Dick in shock and taking him home. Chapter title for this chapter is taken from the song Worn by Tenth Avenue North. Hope you all like this chapter!

Bruce stared at Dick’s sleeping form on the bed from his spot in his son’s bedroom doorway, worry flooding his entire body. It had been almost nine days since the Court had been exposed and the Talons destroyed. After finding Dick near the dead body of William Cobb and brought him to the Cave so Alfred and Leslie could treat the young hero’s injuries, but despite being assured that his son would be okay, Dick hardly left his bed and spent most of the following days sleeping. True, he needed rest in order to heal, but Bruce knew that something else was going on. Having raised the boy since he was eight, he knew that if there was one thing Dick struggled to do was stay still. The only time he was still, was when he was badly injured or sedated.

He was beginning to wonder if the drugs the Court gave him were playing a part in this. Dr. Mid-Nite came over the day after they fought the Court of Owls and told them that the tests he ran found drugs in Dick’s system, and not just the ones needed to activate the electrum. The purpose of these drugs was to weaken his brain function, to slow down his thinking process and make it difficult to recall things. The doctor assured him that the dose he was given wasn’t that strong and should’ve worn off at that point. He also said that he would’ve needed larger and more doses for it to work and figured that it was a step in their brainwashing process, but despite being told that he would be okay, Bruce couldn’t help but worry. There was something wrong with his son, he just didn’t know what.

“How is Master Dick doing sir?” Bruce turned his head to the side and found Alfred coming down the hall towards, a tray of food in his hands.

“Still sleeping.” Bruce answered his surrogate father. Turning back to face his sleeping son, he added, “I don’t like this Alfred. He’s so still, and too quiet.”

“Dr. Mid-Nite did say that he needed rest, and it’s very possible the reason for his exhaustion might be because of his new healing abilities.” Alfred pointed out as he came to stand beside the billionaire.

“Maybe, but he’s never so still, even when he was injured or sick.” Bruce reminded him. Alfred couldn’t really argue with that, Dick had always been such an energetic person. Then Bruce asked, “Do you, do you think he’s depressed or something like that?”

The butler remained quiet for a few seconds, pondering the question. He then said, “He has been through quite an ordeal over the last year or so. It’s very possible.”

Bruce was scared of that. He could handle taking care of physical injuries, but dealing with a mental illness, he had no clue. He sucked at dealing with anything emotional or mental.

“I don’t know what to do Alfred.” Bruce told him, still staring sadly at Dick who remained unaware of what was going on.

“Just be there for him. I’m sure that’s all he really wants.” Alfred quietly advised. Bruce nodded but didn’t say anything. So, the butler held out the tray and said, “Here is his breakfast.”

“Thanks.” Bruce replied, taking the try from him. As he entered the room, Alfred gave a long sad look at his grandson before he walked away.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Dick was pulled from his peaceful rest by someone shaking his shoulder. He waited for a few seconds to see if the person would assume that he was deeply asleep and leave him alone, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Groaning, he tried to move to shake the hand off but the person, now knowing he was awake, tightened his grip and continued trying to rouse him. So Dick just turned around completely so his back was to the intruder.

“You slept through breakfast again Dick. You need to eat.” The person, Bruce, told him.

“Not hungry.” Dick mumbled.

This had become routine over the last several days. He would sleep throughout the night, mostly, then spend the day either sleeping or dozing or just lying in bed trying to go back to sleep. A small voice in the back of his head told him that this was bad, that it wasn’t healthy, but he ignored it. He didn’t really want to be awake. Being awake meant seeing Cobb’s headless body lying in front of him, meant knowing that the Team and Justice League knew the truth about where he came from, it meant that Bruce would soon start lecturing him at how he failed to catch Deathstroke, allowed himself to be kidnapped by the Court and needed everyone’s help to get out of it. Being asleep didn’t have any of that. It didn’t even have nightmares which was surprising but not unwelcome.

“Just eat a little bit. Please chum?” Then Bruce would come into the room with either breakfast, lunch or supper, ask him to eat and Dick would push himself up and try. Bruce almost never said ‘please’ and hadn’t called him ‘chum’ in years. The fact that he was doing both told Dick that it was really important to him, so he did it. And to his surprise, Bruce never pushed him to do more, to talk and he didn’t try to give him a pep talk or a lecture like he expected. It was probably only a matter of time before that happened though.

What surprised him the most though was Tim. Every day since he came back to the Manor, the younger teenager came and sat in his room with him either doing homework, detective work or just watching TV. He didn’t talk much, mostly just staying quiet. Dick didn’t know if it was because Tim was waiting for him to talk or if it was because he had nothing to say, but whatever the reason was, he was glad for it. While he normally loved noise and talking, the silence was peaceful. There was no pressure or tension in it.

With Bruce, there was a type of tension. Dick didn’t really know what kind of tension it was, but whenever he was awake and Bruce was in the room, he had this look in his eyes. He seemed worried or something and there had been a couple of times he looked like he might actually address it, but he never did. Dick didn’t know if he was grateful for that, or if he wished Bruce would.

After Dick managed to eat about half of the scrambled eggs Alfred made him, he put down the fork and pushed the plate to the edge of the tray. Seeing that, Bruce asked, “Can you eat a little more?”

Dick simply shook his head and laid back down, wanting to go back to sleep. Like always, Bruce didn’t look all that happy about him not finishing his plate, but he didn’t argue. What was different this time though was that he put the tray of the bedside table and said, “Dick, I think we need to talk about this.”

The young man almost scoffed, and almost gasped in shock. Bruce hardly ever initiated conversation. He sucked at communicating what he was really thinking or feeling. Dick didn’t want to have a conversation with his adoptive Dad though. He knew it would only end with Bruce yelling and lecturing him about his actions, about his failures and he didn’t think he could handle that right now.

“I’m tired Bruce.” Dick said as he turned onto his side with his back facing the billionaire. He heard Bruce sigh, then stand up and walk out of the room. Dick felt a twinge of guilt for pushing his Dad away, but he ignored it and closed his eyes. He wanted to go back to sleep.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Roy and Wally walked down the hall towards the Watchtower’s living room in dejected silence. They had just tried to contact Bruce, or more accurately, Batman, to see if they could come and visit Dick, but again, he said no. It was driving them crazy. The last time they saw their friend, he was lying in Batman’s arms, looking completely lost and injured. That was a week ago and besides hearing that Dick would be okay, there was no news.

As they entered the room, they found Cassie sitting on the ground, school work laid out in front of her and Kaldur sitting on the couch, looking over what appeared to be files.

“How’s it going?” Cassie asked when she saw them enter the room.

“Fine.” Wally grumbled as he fell backwards onto the couch while Roy did the same on the chair beside him.

“What’s wrong?” The new Wonder Girl asked, growing concerned by their response. Kaldur also looked over at the two redheads worriedly.

“Batman still won’t let us see Dick.” Roy answered, voice filled with anger and frustration. Though Cassie and Kaldur both knew that Dick was Nightwing and Tim was Robin, Cassie still didn’t officially know that Batman was Bruce Wayne.

“And Tim hasn’t been here since that night either so we have no idea what’s going on.” Wally added. He had no doubt that if Tim was here, he’d let them know how Dick was doing and why Batman wasn’t allowing visitors. The Dark Knight however simply took Dick home and said he didn’t want any visitors. He even went so far as to shut down the zeta-tubes to the Batcave and Gotham. He had been hoping that Tim would show up and tell them what was going on, but he had been in Gotham ever since the fight against the Court. He also hadn’t been answering his phone.

“Does Barbara know anything?” Cassie wondered. She had only seen Barbara once or twice in the last week, but she didn’t stay very long.

“If she does, she hasn’t said anything. She’s hardly been around either.” Wally replied. He knew that Barbara would also tell them what was going on but the only updates she gave was that Dick was healing. That was it.

“I am positive that Batman will inform us when there is a change in Dick’s condition.” Kaldur chimed in.

“Or, we could just go over there and find out what’s going on ourselves.” Roy suggested. He was so sick of waiting that he was actually willing to risk Bruce’s wrath by disobeying his orders.

“He’d probably kick you out.” Cassie pointed out, fiddling with her pencil.

“He might.” Wally agreed, then added with an evil twinkle in his green eyes, “Agent A on the other hand,”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

A couple of hours later, Roy and Wally found themselves exiting the car they took and started walking up the steps to Wayne Manor. Kaldur tried to talk them out of it, tried to get them to respect Batman’s wishes, but they refused. They had waited long enough.

Wally rang the doorbell, and less than a minute later, the door swung open to reveal an elderly British man.

“Mr. West, Mr. Harper, what a surprise. Come in.” Alfred greeted them, moving to the side to let them enter the house.

“Thank you, Alfred.” Wally responded as he and Roy came inside.

Alfred closed the door and said, “I assume you are here to see Master Dick?”

“Yes, we are.” Roy told the butler, doing his best to be polite. It wasn’t Alfred keeping them from seeing Dick after all, that was Bruce. And angering Alfred would only make it harder for them to convince him to let them see their friend. Only Alfred could change Bruce’s mind about letting Dick have visitors.

“I am sorry, but Master Bruce still insists that Master Dick has no visitors for the time being.” Alfred told them with a regretful tone of voice.

“It’s been a week Alfred. All we know is that he healed physically. We need to see him.” Roy said, his voice slowly getting louder with frustration.

When Alfred remained silent, Wally added, “Please Alfred.”

At that moment, the elderly Brit turned his gaze to something behind the two young men and said, “Master Bruce. We have some company.”

Roy and Wally turned around to see Bruce Wayne coming down the stairs. As he got to the bottom few steps, he asked, “What are they doing here?”

“They have come to see Master Dick, sir.” Alfred informed the billionaire.

“Dick’s not up for visitors right now.” Bruce responded as he reached the three of them. Before either Roy or Wally could say anything to that, Alfred suddenly and unexpectedly interceded on their behalf.

“If I may Master Bruce, I do believe seeing his old friends might be beneficial to Master Dick’s recovery.”

At first, Bruce glared at Alfred, clearly annoyed that he was getting involved, then dropped it when the butler raised an eyebrow. Even the infamous Batman listened to Alfred. Roy and Wally waited as patiently as they possibly could while the two adults silently argued. Finally, with an angry expression, Bruce said, “He’s in his room, sleeping. You can go sit with him. If you upset him or agitate him at all, you two are out of here. Understood?”

Wordlessly, Roy and Wally nodded, then headed up the stairs towards Dick’s room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Dick’s behaviour might be a bit OOC, but I’m trying to show how everything has been affecting him. He was under a lot of pressure during the invasion, felt extremely guilty for lying to his friends, Wally almost dying, then pretty much all of his friends and family had shunned him and wanted nothing to do with him, he spent 4 months having practically no contact with people outside of his job, spent another 3 months on the run with even less contact with people, during all of that time he began feeling that his friends and family hated him, and now is feeling guilty for the Court attacking Gotham and for Cobb’s death. I hope that I wrote it believably and that you all liked this chapter!


	22. I Got You Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from the song Brother by Kodaline. Hope you all like this chapter!

Wally and Roy sat on opposite sides of Dick’s massive bed, waiting for him to wake up. It was both boring and worrying. When they had come into the room a few hours ago, Tim was there doing his homework and quickly filled them in on how his brother had been behaving for the last week. He also told them what Dr. Mid-Nite and Dr. Thompkins had found and said, then left the room so they could have some alone time with their friend. They were both glad to hear that he was going to be okay, but they were expecting him to wake up rather quickly as he was always a light sleeper and was never still for long. They soon realized they were wrong and why Dick’s family was so worried about him.

“Should we wake him up?” Wally finally asked after about three hours had passed.

“I don’t know. Tim said that he had been sleeping a lot and that’s not healthy.” Roy replied, looking up at him.

“No, but then again, he usually wouldn’t get the sleep he needed before this. Maybe he’s just finally catching up.” Wally suggested.

“Maybe.” Roy said, but his tone made it clear that he didn’t really believe him.

Another minute silenced passed, then Wally asked, “You think we could at least turn on the TV?”

Roy was about tell him ‘no’ when they both heard a loud groan. Roy and Wally immediately turned his gaze back to the figure on the bed and Wally said, “Dick?”

“Wally?” Dick said as he opened his eyes. He then noticed the other person in the room and asked, “Roy? What are you guys doing here?”

“We came to see you. We were worried. It’s been a week and we haven’t heard from you.” Wally answered as Dick sat up.

“A week?” Dick questioned. He knew that a few days had passed since they all fought the Court of Owls, but he didn’t realize that it had been an entire week.

“Yeah, it’s been a week.” Roy confirmed, growing even more worried than he already was. The same thing had happened to him a couple of times when he was searching for the real Roy Harper. He’d lose track of time and be up for days without any sleep or food until he crashed.

Turning his focus back onto Dick, the archer asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” Dick answered, leaning against the headboard.

“From what we’ve heard, you’ve mostly been sleeping the entire time.” Wally told him, trying to keep his voice calm and casual instead of letting his worry show. If he did that, Dick would quickly get defensive and there was already a strong chance he was going to get defensive when he realized what they wanted to talk to him about. He didn’t want to make it worse.

“I like sleep.” Dick mumbled, closing his eyes. It looked like he was actually going to sleep right there despite the awkward, slumped position he was in.

“Since when?” Roy asked with a slight scoff. The corner of Dick’s mouth twitched upwards for a split second but he didn’t say anything and he didn’t open his eyes.

“Dick, I know you’re tired, but we need to talk.” Roy then said seriously.

The younger man opened his blue eyes and mumbled, “I don’t want to talk.”

“I know, but we really need to.” Wally replied. Dick sighed, and pushed himself back up but he kept his mouth shut, clearly waiting for them to the first move.

“Dick, we’re both really sorry for what we did.” Wally started, “I was so focused on wanting a normal life with Artemis and when you asked for our help, the only thing I could really think was that you were ruining it. I refused to look at the big picture, or to see how much you were struggling under the weight of the whole thing. And then, I pushed you away and didn’t talk to you at all. I’m really, really sorry Dick. I never should’ve done that. I would go back in time and change it if I could, but Uncle Barry won’t let me.”

Wally chuckled a little at his own joke and Roy cracked a smile, but Dick didn’t. He made no kind of response whatsoever. He looked over at the oldest redhead, silently asking him what he should do now. He didn’t really know what else to say except ‘I’m sorry’ over and over until Dick believed him and forgave him. He also knew that that wouldn’t really work. If that was all his best friend needed to hear, then he would’ve said so right after he stopped talking.

“I’m sorry too Dick.” Roy apologized, “I was so focused on finding the real Roy that I pushed everyone away and didn’t listen to anyone. If I stayed with the Team, if I actually stayed in contact with you like I should’ve, then I could’ve helped you. And I shouldn’t have gotten so mad at you after the invasion, especially since I didn’t know what was going on. I’m really sorry.”

Again, Dick stayed quiet, but Roy and Wally had both apologized and weren’t sure what else to say. So they also remained silent, waiting for Dick to talk. Wally however, quickly grew impatient and said, “Please Dick, say something.”

“You guys had ever right to be mad. I shouldn’t have lied about the mission. I knew you were trying to get out of the life Wally, and I should’ve respected that. And it’s not your fault Roy. You were dealing with your own problems.” Dick finally told them after a few minutes of silence.

“We aren’t happy you lied, but you had good reason too. If you didn’t, the Light might not have bought Artemis’s ‘death’. And Jaime, while under the Reach’s control could have easily told them the truth about Kaldur and Artemis and ruined the whole thing. And we had no right to be that mad at you.” Roy insisted.

“And like I already said, you needed the help and I should’ve realized that. You were trying to save the entire world, and as much as I love Artemis and don’t want to lose her, we both would’ve hated ourselves if we refused to help and the Reach and the Light ended up winning.” Wally added. Dick looked to he was about to protest but before he could, Roy cut in.

“And we took it way to far when we shut you out for seven months. We never should have done that.”

“Honestly, we all knew we were wrong with how we were acting a long time ago, we just too proud and didn’t know what to say.” Wally chimed back in.

The first Robin stayed quiet and lowered his head even more than it already was and drew his knees up and close his chest. Wrapping his arms around them, he struggled to keep his emotions at bay. For seven months, this was all he wanted to hear. Now that he finally was, he had no idea what to do. He wasn’t even sure if he actually believed them. After so much time alone with nothing but his thoughts and insecurities, it seemed too good to be true.

Despite his attempt to keep his emotions in check, a tear slipped from his eye and started running down his cheek. Before he could wipe it away, Roy and Wally both noticed and they climbed onto the bed. Wally wrapped his arms around Dick while the oldest of the three wrapped his arms around both of them so that Dick was stuck in between them. Just like that, a dam inside of him burst open and the sobs completely overtook his body. The redheads only tightened their hold on him and the raven-haired man let himself fall apart. After so many months, he let himself relish in the contact he so desperately needed.

It took over half an hour for Dick to calm down and when he did, his body fell limp against his friends, his brothers. If he thought he was tired before, he was downright exhausted now. His head was pounding and his entire body felt heavy. He was sure he was about to fall back asleep, but then he heard Wally’s voice saying, “Dick, why didn’t you tell us about the Court?”

“You and I were fighting. And Roy, you were so busy looking for the other Roy and I, I.” Dick broke off, needing a minute to work up the courage to admit what he was feeling.

“I was ashamed. And lost, I didn’t know what to think. And I was, I was scared what you guys would think.” He admitted, looking down at his legs.

As much as Wally wanted to tell him that they would’ve been there for him, that they wouldn’t have suddenly thought he was a criminal just because his great-grandfather was or anything like that, he wasn’t sure he could. During that time, he was pretty mad at Dick for not being happy for him and Artemis to leave the hero life and when he gets mad, he doesn’t have the best control of his mouth. He was still mad at himself for how he yelled at his best friend when he heard that the Mountain was destroyed.

“Dick, just because someone in your family was an assassin, doesn’t mean you are anything like him. You are a hero, and a good person. You are nothing like him, we know that.” Roy told him.

“And we’re both sorry that we made you feel like you couldn’t come to use.” Wally added.

Dick again fell quiet, thinking over their words. He still wasn’t sure if he believed them and he had no idea what to say to them right now. But he knew what he wanted. He wanted to get past this, he wanted to believe them. He wanted his friends back.

So he said, “It’s okay.”

“No it’s not. But it will be. And we know that you don’t believe us, but we’ll prove it to you.” Wally immediately replied.

“Can, can you guys stay?” Dick whispered, not wanting to be alone right now.

“Yeah, of course we will.” Roy told him. The three of them then laid down on the bed and Dick immediately fell asleep with his brothers following shortly afterwards.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Bruce sat at the desk in his study, trying to focus on the reports from Wayne Enterprises about a new invention but was struggling. All of his instincts were telling him to go sit with Dick, to just be with him even if he was sleeping. But he knew that Dick would probably want to be alone with his friends and he did have a lot of work to catch up on. He had been gone for over a week on a League mission, then came home to find out that his son had been kidnapped and then spent every waking moment looking for him. Lucius had been doing his best at covering for him, but he knew he needed to get back to work.

A knock at the door drew Bruce’s gaze to it as he said, “Come in.”

To his surprise, it was none other than Clark Kent instead of Tim or Alfred like he was expecting. The reporter entered the room and said, “Hi Bruce.”

“Clark. What are you doing here?” Bruce wondered, gesturing to the chair in front of the desk.

“No one’s heard from you since that night, and you’ve kept the Cave on lockdown, along with all the zeta tubes in Gotham. We’re all getting a bit worried.” Clark answered, sitting down in front of the billionaire.

“Well, you can tell them everything’s fine.” Bruce told him, turning his attention back to his computer screen.

“Is that the truth?” Clark asked with a knowing tone of voice that greatly annoyed the other man.

With a sigh, Bruce said, “Dick is struggling. He’s physically healed, but he hardly ever leaves his bed, barely talks or eats. I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you tried talking to him?” Clark questioned worriedly. He had watched Dick grow up and knew that the young man hated being still or being forced to stay in bed.

“I, no, not really. I don’t know what to say. Usually he’s the one who starts the conversation and from that, I’m able to figure out what’s bugging him, but he’s not talking.” Bruce responded.

“Then maybe it’s time for you to be the one to initiate the conversation.” Clark suggested.

Bruce nodded in reply, but stayed quiet. Feeling like he might need to talk about something else, the alien asked, “What’s going on with the Court?”

“Batman was able to fill in Commissioner Gordon on the Court and the Talons so he knows how to keep them in custody and handed him all the evidence he had, but a lot of members are still out there. Hopefully with March in jail though, the Court will finally be finished.” Bruce answered.

“And what is the public being told?” Clark then questioned.

“Only that there is a secret society that March was in charge of, were involved in a plot to take over Gotham and that he hired a bunch of assassins to ‘purify’ the city of those he believed were causing problems. And that he had faked his death so no one would suspect him.” Bruce informed him.

“So that’s the end of that then.”

“I hope so, but I can’t help but doubt it.” Bruce confessed.

“I’m sure everything will be okay Bruce. With both Gotham and Dick. As long as they both have you.” Clark told him. As much as he knew that Bruce had problems opening up and being there for his son, he knew that he loved Dick and would do anything for him.

Bruce nodded, but stayed quiet as a thoughtful look came upon his face. Clark said ‘goodbye’, then stood up and exited the room, leaving the father alone with his thoughts.


	23. Carry You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from the song Carry You by Ruelle ft. Fleurie. Hope you all like it!

Roy and Wally didn’t sleep as long as Dick, but they waited quietly until he woke up. At that point, Alfred had come in with lunch for all of them and after they ate, they turned on the TV. They weren’t really watching but it was nice to have some more noise in the room. The three of them talked quietly, mostly just catching up on what all happened in their lives in the last several months, or just mocking what was on the TV. It was later in the afternoon when Alfred reappeared at the door with some unexpected news.

“I am sorry to disturb you three, but there are so more guests here to see you Master Dick.” Alfred told them. Roy, Dick and Wally immediately sat in the bed as the butler backed away from the door so whoever had arrived could enter the room. To their surprise, they saw it was Kaldur, Artemis, M’gann, Conner and Barbara who had come to see them.

“Hi Dick.” M’gann said as the group entered the room.

“Hey. What are you guys doing here?” Dick asked, looking them over, trying to find answers from their expressions, but they didn’t show much.

“We took a page out of Wally and Roy’s book and decided to come see you even though Bruce said ‘no’.” Artemis replied with a smirk, sitting down at the foot of the bed near her boyfriend.

“Was that really wise?” Dick wondered. This was the first he was hearing that Roy and Wally technically weren’t given permission by Bruce to come over and he was most likely not pleased that they were here. Having more people come over would put him in even more of a bad mood.

“Probably not, but it’s not like you can talk. You’ve done a lot of things that Bruce told you not to do.” Barbara pointed out, a smile on her face as she took a seat beside Artemis. Dick only grinned at that.

“How are you doing Dick?” Kaldur asked with a serious tone.

Giving the man a reassuring smile, Dick answered, “I’m okay. Just tired.”

From the corner of his eyes, the former leader saw Roy and Wally exchanged worried looks, but he ignored them and asked, “Why are you guys here anyway?”

“We came to see you. We were worried.” M’gann told him, moving to stand by Dick’s side. Conner followed right behind her.

“Thanks for checking on me, but I’m okay.” Dick informed them, but from the way they frowned, he knew they didn’t believe him.

“No you’re not.” M’gann told him. Putting a hand on his shoulder, she continued, “But that’s okay. No one is okay all the time.”

“We also came to tell you, that we’re sorry, for how we acted once the invasion was dealt with.” Conner surprised everyone for being the one to say that. While the clone had learned to control his anger, there were still some times he let it out and he had definitely let it control him when Dick told the truth about Artemis’s ‘death’ and Kaldur betraying them.

“You guys had every right to be angry at me.” Dick told him, lowering his eyes.

“Not that mad.” Barbara responded, “You are our friend, and our teammate, and you were our leader at the time. We shouldn’t have let our emotions cloud our judgement or our logic.”

“You had good reason to keep the whole thing a secret. Considering what we’ve all been through, we should’ve understood that.” Conner said.

“And we’re really sorry.” M’gann chimed back in.

Dick was about to say that it was okay, that he forgave them a long time ago because he never blamed them, but then Artemis spoke up, “And I’m sorry that after you left, I didn’t stay and touch.”

“I am also sorry I did not stay in touch with you either.” Kaldur joined in.

The first Robin was surprised by all of the apologizes he was getting today, but mostly by Kaldur and Artemis’s. Again though, he gave them a small but reassuring smile and said, “It’s okay.”

The others still didn’t feel like it was okay, but they knew that Dick wasn’t going to accept any of their protests about it. He had forgiven them and that was that. So, with smiles on all of their faces, they sat down on the bed and began talking. Just like that, it was almost as if no time had passed at all. Dick had known all along that he missed his friends, but it wasn’t until then that he realized how much.

“Hey Dick, do you think you’re going to come back to the Team?” Wally wondered, changing the topic that they were currently talking about. Dick frowned, but said nothing. While the people in his room may have forgiven him, there were others on the Team who might not be so forgiving, or welcoming.

Seeing the hesitancy on his face and realizing why, Artemis said, “The others are also really sorry about how they acted.”

“Really?” Dick couldn’t help but be skeptical. Some members of the Team weren’t even aware that he had come back and what all happened in the last few weeks, and the ones that were there still seemed to be a bit mad at him, especially La’gaan.

“La’gaan went back to Atlantis with Aquaman.” Kaldur informed him, “I am unsure if he will return once he recovers,”

“But if he does, he will have to learn to get over it.” Conner added, actually looking forward having a reason to be mad at the other Atlantean.

“I think you should come back.” A voice suddenly drew everyone’s attention to the door. Standing in the doorway, was Tim.

“You do?” Dick questioned as Tim came into the room.

“Yeah. You are a great leader. And despite how angry we were, we did miss you. We still do.” Tim replied, coming to a stop by Dick’s side.

Dick sat quietly for a minute, then said, “I’ll think about it.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Late that evening, Dick sat in the living room reading one of his old favourite books. Though he was still a little tired, he didn’t want to be in his room anymore. He was starting to get cabin fever or something. Now that he thought about it, he was actually shocked that he hadn’t gotten sick of his room earlier. He must’ve really been out of it. Of course, he had known that the entire time in the back of his head, but it wasn’t until now that he really realized it.

The hours he spent with his friends and with Tim had definitely helped and made him feel a lot better. He even went downstairs and supper in the dining room with his little brother. Alfred was noticeable thrilled to see him up and about, but the major thing that Dick noticed was that Bruce was missing. He assumed that the older man was busy with work or something, but it did sting a little that he wasn’t there. Considering how worried Bruce obviously was whenever he came to see him when he was in his room, he would’ve thought that the news that he was up and about would’ve gotten his attention. But Dick was also used to Bruce pulling away, so he didn’t think much of it.

To his surprise though, he heard the sound of footsteps coming towards him and when he looked up, he found his father figure entering the room. Seeing him, Bruce said, “Nice to see you up.”

With a smile, Dick said, “Feels nice to be up.”

“Are you feeling better?” Bruce asked, coming to stand by the couch where Dick was sitting.

“A bit, yeah.” Dick answered. He expected Bruce to either nod or grunt in acknowledgement, then tell him to not stay up too late before heading down to the Cave or something, but to his surprise, the billionaire actually sat down beside him.

For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Dick knew that there was something Bruce wanted to talk to him about something, it was the only reason he hadn’t left yet. And judging from how long it was taking him to talk, it was something big and probably had something to do with emotions. That meant that this wasn’t going to be a fun conversation. Bracing himself for what his guardian was about to say, Dick put the book down and gave the older man his complete attention.

“Dick, I, I um.” Bruce paused, struggling to say the words that his son deserved to hear. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I’m sorry.”

Seeing Dick’s shocked face and feeling another stab of guilt because of it, Bruce turned his gaze down to the floor and continued, “When I came back from Rimbor and found out what was going on, I didn’t have the whole story. I just heard bits and pieces when I, when I yelled at you.”

“I never should have done that, and I’m sorry. I was upset because, I was scared.” Bruce reluctantly admitted but knowing that Dick deserved to hear this, he kept going, “I was scared that I was going to lose you and Tim, like I lost Jason. And when I learned that it was all your plan, I realized that it was something that I would do.”

“What’s the problem with that?” Dick wondered. Everything else that Bruce had said, he could easily understand. After Jason’s death, Bruce was stuck in this weird cycle of constantly pushing him away, or pulling him so close that he felt like he was going to suffocate. But ever since he first became Robin, Bruce had trained him to eventually take over, hadn’t he?

“Dick, I never, ever wanted you to end up like me.” Bruce revealed, looking Dick straight in the eyes so he could see how serious he was about this.

“But you,” The acrobat started before Bruce cut him off.

“I wanted you to be better than me.” Bruce told him. Putting a hand on Dick’s shoulder, he smiled and said, “And you are.”

“I’m so sorry I pushed you away. I shouldn’t have let so much time pass without telling you that. And I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t ask me for help when the Court went after you.” Bruce managed to get out without any pauses.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to you.” Dick also apologized. If he had swallowed his pride and told Bruce what was going on when he realized the Court was coming after him, he might not have had to go to on the run and maybe they could have stopped them before all of this happened. Before Bruce could respond to that, Dick added, “I love you Dad.”

“I, I love you too chum.” Bruce told him. Dick immediately threw his arms around his Dad, who tensed a little, but quickly returned the hug.

After a couple of minutes, Bruce pulled away so he could look at Dick’s face. He could see that Dick’s eyes were wet. He gave him a minute to compose him then asked, “Are you going to go back to the Team?”

“I don’t know.” Dick answered, running a hand over his face.

“Either way, I understand if you don’t want to, but I would like you to move back home.” Bruce told him.

Dick snapped his head back towards him and said, “Really?”

“Really.” He confirmed.

“I would like that, at least until I get back on my feet.” Dick replied with a small, nervous smile.

“Okay.” Bruce said. He would’ve liked his son to move back home permanently, but he knew that probably wouldn’t happen. Dick was a very independent person and was an adult, he wouldn’t like being in the Manor forever. But, he was glad that he would be back for a little while. Maybe then they could fully fix their relationship.


	24. Any Other Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the last chapter everyone. The chapter title is from the song Any Other Way by We The Kings. I hope you all like this chapter and have enjoyed reading this story!

One week later, after being checked over by both Leslie and Dr. Mid-Nite and given a clean bill of health, Dick dressed in his new Nightwing suit, walked into the Watchtower with Batman and Robin. He had heard that Batman had a mission to send the Team on a mission and decided to come with them to see the Team. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to rejoin the Team though. He wasn’t sure how well that would go. He had no idea if the younger members were still mad at him and if they wanted him to come back. He wasn’t going to stay where he wasn’t wanted.

Entering the Watchtower through the zeta-tubes, Dick found Kaldur, Wally, Artemis, Roy, M’gann, Conner, Gar, Jaime, Cassie and Barbara, all in their uniforms, standing by the screens and monitors waiting for them. As the automated voice of the zeta-tubes announced Batman, Robin and Nightwing’s arrival, everyone turned to look at them.

“Dick!” Wally shouted as he ran over to him. He was about to hug him when he noticed Batman glaring at him, then said, “Um, I mean, Nightwing. What are you doing here?”

“Well, Batman told me that he had a mission for you guys and I thought I’d tag along to see you all.” Dick answered, giving Batman a look that told him to ease up on the glaring.

Hearing what Nightwing and Wally were talking about, Gar came over and asked, “Wait, are you going to join us on the mission? Are you back on the Team?”

“Well, I,” Dick started, then stopped as he glanced at the other members of the Team. While the original members have apologized, and wanted him to come back, he had no idea about the others.

“You are always welcome on the Team, Nightwing.” Kaldur assured him, speaking for the others. Dick looked back over at the other members that were there, but he couldn’t really read their faces.

“I don’t know.” He mumbled, feeling even more nervous now than he had been before they arrived at the Watchtower.

“Please.” Wally said, “We want you to come back. We miss you.”

Dick again glanced over at the young superheroes but this time, they were all smiling, like they were encouraging him, so he let a small smile of his own come upon his face and said, “I’ll join you guys on this mission. We’ll see how it goes after that. Does that sound okay?”

“That sounds great.” Artemis replied with a grin. Wally threw his arm around Dick’s shoulder, also grinning, and led him over to the monitors. The others followed right behind them. Once they were all there, Batman started to explain their mission.

“As you all know, while the Reach was here, they had released energy drinks that were design to expose those with mutant genes. The Light sabotaged them and they have been discontinued and destroyed since then, but the League has uncovered evidence that the Light is remaking the drinks and getting ready to sell them under a different name.”

Batman then turned to the monitor, and pulled up an image of a large building, “This is the lab that we suspect of doing this.”

“That’s a Cadmus lab.” Conner pointed out, easily recognizing the symbol on the side of the building.

“Yes, it is.” Batman confirmed, “The mission is just to observed and look for any evidence that what we suspect is true. Do not attack or engage in any way.”

“Here I was hoping the first mission when we’re all back together would be a fun one.” Wally said with a disappointed sigh.

Dick however smiled and said, “I don’t know. Breaking into a Cadmus lab is kind of fitting.”

Wally looked over at him, then looked over at Kaldur and Superboy to see them also grinning. He then turned his attention back to Dick and replied, “Yeah, I guess it is.”

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

As Nightwing leapt from building to building throughout Gotham that night after a successful first mission with the Team, he knew he was being followed, and not by Batman. The Dark Knight was dealing with a drug deal on the other side of the city while he was supposed to keep an eye out on this side of the city. However, he quickly noticed that someone was following him and knew that the person following him was aware of it too. And yet, the person didn’t back off, which quickly told Dick who the person was. So he stopped on one of the city’s skyscrapers and waited for his stalker to catch up. If it was who he thought it was, then he wanted to talk to him. He had some questions that needed answering.

He didn’t have to wait long. Only about two or three minutes after he stopped, the person arrived, dressed in black and orange which always seemed to be a strange colour combination to him. Dick waited until the figure got his footing before he asked, “You seriously bored enough to follow me around?”

“I was not expecting to see you out so soon. I wanted to make sure that you weren’t doing something stupid.” Deathstroke answered. Dick wasn’t entirely sure if he believed him. As much as he hated Slade for everything he had done, there had been times that if he didn’t know any better, he’d think the assassin cared about him. He knew that was true though. The only reason he seemed to care was probably because he was still hoping he could get him to be his apprentice, which would never, ever, happen

“If anyone is being stupid, it’s you. Batman will not be happy if he hears you’re in his city.” Dick told him, not that he needed. Slade was fully aware of how much the Dark Knight hated him for what he did to his very first Robin.

“So why haven’t you told him, if you were aware that I was following you?” Slade asked as he took off his helmet so he could look at the hero with his own eye.

“You were hired by the Court to kidnap me. You could have easily grabbed me when you set off that bomb near the Hall of Justice, but you didn’t. You left an owl feather with the name the Court calls me carved into it. It was a warning, wasn’t it? You were trying to tell me who was after me.” Slade opened his mouth to respond, but Dick continued.

“And Batman told me how one of my trackers turned on and led him to that abandoned factory, where my mask, gloves, trackers and weapons were. The ones that you were supposed to get rid of. And with them, there was another owl feather with the word _Gotham_ written in it.”

“If you there’s a point here, make it.” Slade told him, sounding extremely bored.

“You were trying to help me, and Batman. I want to know why.” Dick replied, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Slade sighed, took a step forward and said, “The Court would have ruined you. They would’ve brainwashed you, would’ve made you into nothing more than a mindless, killing machine. There are many ways to break someone down, but to destroy what makes them strong, what makes them stand apart, that is the worst way. And if anyone is going to turn you into an assassin, it will be me.”

“Then why did you take the contract.” Dick wondered.

“Because if I didn’t, someone else would’ve, and they wouldn’t have helped you. Plus, the money was very good.” Slade answered.

“Thank you, for your help.” Dick said sincerely before adding, “But don’t think that makes up for anything. Next time I see you, I will kick your butt and throw it in jail.”

Slade chuckled then said, “We’ll see about that.”

The assassin put his helmet back on, walked over to the ledge, said, “See you later kid.” And jumped off.

Dick stared at the spot where Slade had been for a minute, then turned and headed off in the opposite direction. He had work to do.

**YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ**

Hidden in a secret room in the heart of Paris, France were five people sitting at a table. There were three men, one was brunette, another a redhead, while the other had black hair littered with grey streaks. He sat at the head of the table. The other two were women, one also a brunette while the other was blonde. They were all fabulously dressed in the latest and most expensive fashion but the strangest part of their outfits were the matching white owl masks they wore that covered their faces. Despite all knowing each other extremely well, no one dared to lift the mask and confirm their identity to the others.

“The Batman has proved to be a more formidable enemy than we had realized.” Said the brunette man, sitting the closest to the head of the table.

“No, March was just an incompetent leader.” The blonde woman objected.

“It was both. March went too far with his attack on Gotham, and no one could have foreseen Batman getting the entire Justice League involved. He never has before after all.” The black- and grey-haired leader told them, his voice making it clear what he said was the truth.

“Should we consider the city of Gotham a lost cause?” The brunette female asked.

“No, not yet. We still have many people there who are ready to rebuild.” The leader responded.

“What about the Gray Son?” The redhead man wondered.

The leader was quiet for a minute, thinking the question over before he replied, “It appears that he might be a lost cause. For now, we will keep an eye on him and if an opportunity arises, we will take it. Until then, we leave him alone, and focus on rebuilding our section in Gotham.”

“How strange that the Batman, who is said to be the world’s greatest detective, doesn’t even bother looking for evidence of any other Court of Owls in the world.” The female woman remarked.

The leader of the small group smiled, then said, “Strange but helpful to our side. With his ignorance, the Parliament will continue to thrive, and when the Court in Gotham is rebuilt, we will take him down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, despite this very open ending with both the Parliament of Owls and Slade, I am not planning to write a sequel to this story. Sorry. I left it like this because in the comics, there is the Parliament of Owls and I wanted to acknowledge that. But there is no plan for a sequel. There will be, a prequel though that is about what happened with Dick and Slade. Not sure when I'll get to it but it is coming! See you then!

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve never been to San Francisco, I tried to find a map of the streets but couldn’t find any so I just made it up. Hope no one minds. And I hope you all liked this chapter!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Broken Wings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22355224) by [Seraphim0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seraphim0/pseuds/Seraphim0)




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